The Anxious Generation- How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt.jpg
The Anxious Generation- How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt.jpg

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

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Hardcover:

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. • A cultural catalyst for the resulting $17.1 Billion Meta Settlement.

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 investigates the epidemic of teen mental illness and childhood development, showing how the "play-based childhood" declined in the 1980s and was replaced by the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents mechanisms by which this rewiring has interfered with children's development and proposes four simple rules and actionable steps for parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments to restore a more humane 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 a finalist for the PEN Literary Awards.

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. • A cultural catalyst for the resulting $17.1 Billion Meta Settlement.

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 investigates the epidemic of teen mental illness and childhood development, showing how the "play-based childhood" declined in the 1980s and was replaced by the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents mechanisms by which this rewiring has interfered with children's development and proposes four simple rules and actionable steps for parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments to restore a more humane 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 a finalist for the PEN Literary Awards.

  • Publisher: Penguin Press

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

    Author: Jonathan Haidt

    On Sale Date: March 26, 2024

    ISBN 13: 978-0-593-65503-0

    ISBN 10: 0-593-65503-6

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $30.00

    Page Count: 400

    Dimensions: 6.4 x 9.5 x 1.3 in

    Weight: 1.38 lb

  • Jonathan Haidt has spent more than three decades studying how minds work in groups—first as a social psychologist researching moral judgment, more recently as one of the most closely read voices on what technology is doing to children. He holds a PhD in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and taught at the University of Virginia for sixteen years before joining NYU's Stern School of Business, where he now holds the Thomas Cooley Professorship in Ethical Leadership. He built his reputation with The Righteous Mind and, with Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind—both books about how modern life reshapes the way people think. The Anxious Generation turned that same rigor on the phone in every teenager's pocket, and became one of the defining nonfiction books of the decade: a New York Times bestseller that spent well over two years on the list and topped it repeatedly in its first year alone.

  • Critics and fellow bestselling authors are calling it urgent, meticulous, and galvanizing:

    • "A very important book." — Bessel van der Kolk, Financial Times, author of The Body Keeps the Score

    • "Lucid, memorable, galvanizing." — Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal

    • "Erudite, engaging, crusading." — Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, The New York Times Book Review

    • "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

This book is for you if

  • You've noticed your own kid—or yourself—reaching for a phone the second boredom hits, and you want the research behind why that's a problem.

  • You're a parent, teacher, or school administrator trying to decide when, or whether, to hand a child a smartphone.

  • You want hard data on the shift from a play-based to a phone-based childhood, not just another op-ed about "kids these days."

  • You're drawn to books that end in a real action plan—four concrete rules for parents, schools, tech companies, and governments—rather than just diagnosing the problem.

  • You've already read The Coddling of the American Mind or The Righteous Mind and want Haidt's most urgent argument yet.

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