Description

The Instant New York Times #1 Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2024
A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book
One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2024
A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2024
Named a Best Book of 2024 by the Economist, the New York Post, and Town & Country
The Goodreads Choice Award Nonfiction Book of the Year

A must-read for every parent, this groundbreaking investigation explores the alarming decline in youth mental health in the age of smartphones, social media, and Big Tech—offering a path toward a healthier and more independent childhood.

“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.” —Shannon Carlin, TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After years of stability or improvement, adolescent mental health took a sharp downturn in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide skyrocketed, in some cases more than doubling. What caused this crisis?

In *The Anxious Generation,* social psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents a compelling analysis of the teen mental health epidemic that emerged simultaneously in multiple countries. He delves into the importance of childhood experiences such as play and independent exploration, which are crucial for developing confident and capable adults. Haidt traces how the “play-based childhood” that once defined growing up began to erode in the 1980s—only to be completely overtaken in the early 2010s by a new model: the “phone-based childhood.”

Haidt identifies more than a dozen ways in which this fundamental shift has disrupted children’s neurological and social development, with effects ranging from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media has had a particularly damaging impact on girls and why boys are retreating into virtual worlds, often with devastating consequences for themselves, their families, and society as a whole.

Most importantly, Haidt presents a clear call to action. He outlines the “collective action problems” that keep families and institutions trapped in this harmful cycle and proposes four straightforward rules that could help break free. He also offers specific steps that parents, educators, schools, tech companies, and policymakers can take to combat the mental health crisis and restore a more balanced and fulfilling childhood.

Throughout his career, Haidt has tackled some of the most challenging issues—political and religious division, campus culture wars, and now the mental health emergency threatening Generation Z. His findings are too urgent to ignore. Protecting children—and ourselves—from the psychological harm of a phone-centered life is now more critical than ever.