The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Hardcover

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The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
  • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Hardcover

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Hardcover

by Jonathan Haidt
$30.00
$30.00

Book Overview

THE ACCLAIMED #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER with over two million copies sold - A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech--and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

Named one of the best books of the year by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Time, The Economist, New York Post, and Town & Country - One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year - Named finalist for the PEN Literary Awards

"With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids." --Time
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height") lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the "play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the "collective action problems" that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes--communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children--and ourselves--from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.
ISBN9780593655030
Author Jonathan Haidt
PublisherPenguin Press
GenreSelf-help & personal development and Relationships
FormatHardcover
PublishedMarch 2024
LanguageENG- English
Pages400
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Family & Relationships Nonfiction Psychology Self-Help

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More by Jonathan Haidt

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Hardcover

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Hardcover

By Jonathan Haidt

About Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt (pronounced height) is a social psychologist and professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. His early research was on morality, emotion, and culture, but since 2018 he has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis and of three New York Times bestsellers: The Righteous Mind, The Coddling of the American Mind (with Greg Lukianoff), and the international bestseller The Anxious Generation. His goal is to help young people and democracies flourish in the digital age.

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