The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024) by Jonthan Haidt is a book that every parent should read. Haidt is a professor of psychology at NYU.
There is an interesting and somewhat confrontational interview with Haidt on the Conversations with Tyler podcast.
The book’s thesis is that the rapid rise in mental illness that has been seen in most of the Anglosphere and Scandinavia and particularly in the US is substantially caused by the increase in screen time for kids and in particular by smartphones and girls using social media. The mental health of boys is also being impacted by more by playing games too much.
Haidt makes his case pretty well. It is just too big a coincidence that just as smartphones and social media appear so do rates of mental illness. It could be causation, but it’s pretty unlikely. There is something interesting in that smartphones have affected kids in the Anglosphere and Scandinavia more than in other countries. Perhaps social and family ties have been better maintained in other countries.
The book makes pretty strong recommendations about how kids need more free play without adult supervision and how screen time should be limited and kids shouldn’t have accounts on social media until they are 16. Schools should also have phones locked away for the duration of the day. Where I live in Australia this has just become the policy.
The Anxious Generation is definitely worth a read for anyone with kids. The impact of screens on adults is probably the next thing that is worth writing about. That might be Haidt’s next book. Of course, the impact of screens should only be explored after I’ve finished writing this review and you’ve finished reading it.
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