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Jonathan HaidtJonathan Haidt
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Paperback – 3 April 2024
by Jonathan Haidt (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 3,913 ratings
An urgent and insightful investigation into the collapse in youth mental health, from the influential social psychologist and international bestselling author
Jonathan Haidt has spent his career speaking truth and wisdom in some of the most difficult spaces - communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the mental health emergency hitting teenagers today in many countries around the world.
In The Anxious Generation, Haidt shows how, between 2010 and 2015, childhood and adolescence got rewired. As teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones packed with social media apps, time online soared, including time spent comparing oneself to a vast pool of others. Time engaging face-to-face with friends and family plummeted, and so did mental health.
But this is not just a story about technology; this profound shift took place against a backdrop of declining childhood freedom and free-play, as parents over-supervised every aspect of their children's lives offline, depriving them of the experiences they most need to become strong and self-governing adults.
In this book, Haidt makes a compelling argument that the loss of play-based childhood and its replacement with a phone-based childhood that is not suitable for human development is the source of increased mental distress among teenagers. The Anxious Generation delves into the latest psychological and biological research to show the four fundamental ways in which a phone-based childhood disrupts development - sleep deprivation, social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation and addiction. Haidt offers separate in-depth analyses of what has happened to girls, and what has happened to boys, offering practical advice for parents, schools, governments, and teens themselves. Drawing on ancient wisdom and cutting-edge research, this eye-opening book is a life raft and a powerful call-to-arms.
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Print length
400 pages
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My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.
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People don’t get depressed when they face threats collectively; they get depressed when they feel isolated, lonely, or useless.
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While the reward-seeking parts of the brain mature earlier, the frontal cortex—essential for self-control, delay of gratification, and resistance to temptation—is not up to full capacity until the mid-20s, and preteens are at a particularly vulnerable point in development.
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From the brand
How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Since 2010...
The popularisation of smartphones and 24-hour internet access has led to 46% of teens to be online 'almost constantly'
Anxiety diagnoses among 18–25-year-olds have increased by 92%
Nearly 40% of teenage girls in the UK who spend over 5 hours on social media per day score as clinically depressed
What has changed?
Parents tend to over-supervise every aspect of their children’s lives offline, depriving them of the experiences and skills they need to develop greater resilience. Meanwhile, smartphones encourage screen-based living in place of real-time, face to face interactions. Selfie culture weakens confidence as teens compare themselves to others, while social media reduces connection to 'likes' alone.
What can we do now?
More unsupervised play: allow children to gain social skills and become autonomous adults
No smartphones before 14: limit usage to dumb phones
No social media before 16: protect those in the most vulnerable stages of brain development
Phone free schools: store devices in lockers to promote real-life interaction, connection and focus
The Anxious GenerationHold On To Your KidsThe Book You Wish Your Parents Had ReadTen Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental HealthRaising Girls Who Like ThemselvesBringing Up Boys Who Like Themselves
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What's it about? A deep dive into the factors contributing to the rising anxiety levels among young people, offering insights and practical solutions. This book explores the importance of parental attachment in child development and offers guidance on fostering strong parent-child connections. A thoughtful guide to understanding your child’s behavior and building a strong, healthy relationship with them. Essential insights and actionable advice for parents to better understand and support their child's mental health. Insightful strategies for nurturing self-esteem and resilience in young girls. Practical advice on raising confident and emotionally healthy boys in today’s challenging world.
Practical Parenting Advice ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Mental Health Insights ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Strategies for Building Self-Esteem ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Real-life Examples and Case Studies ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Parental Attachment Guidance ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Product description
About the Author
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind.
Product details
Publisher : Allen Lane; 1st edition (3 April 2024)
Language : English
Paperback : 400 pages
ISBN-10 : 0241694906
ISBN-13 : 978-0241694909
Dimensions : 20.3 x 25.4 x 4.7 cmBest Sellers Rank: 58 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)1 in Developmental Psychology (Books)
2 in Babysitting, Day Care & Child Care
2 in Parenting Teenagers (Books)Customer Reviews:
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,913 ratings
About the author
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Jonathan Haidt
Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India. He taught at the University of Virginia for 16 years before moving to NYU-Stern in 2011. He was named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine.
His research focuses on morality - its emotional foundations, cultural variations, and developmental course. He began his career studying the negative moral emotions, such as disgust, shame, and vengeance, but then moved on to the understudied positive moral emotions, such as admiration, awe, and moral elevation. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org. He is a co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, which advocates for viewpoint diversity in higher education. He uses his research to help people understand and respect the moral motives of their enemies (see CivilPolitics.org, and see his TED talks). He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom; The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion; and (with Greg Lukianoff) The Coddling of the American Mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting a generation up for failure. For more information see www.JonathanHaidt.com.
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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
3,913 global ratings
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Groucho Groucho
5.0 out of 5 stars Every Parent Should Read thisReviewed in Australia on 22 October 2024
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This book is a warning to all parents that the world, through social media, phones, computers and other devices is playing merry hell with everyone's head. Kids are presenting ADHD symptoms when they don't actually have ADHD and they end up lacking confidence and resilience. Parents are focussing on the wrong threats and as a result, adding to their children's lack of resilience and anxiety.
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Joan Dutton
5.0 out of 5 stars Good bookReviewed in Australia on 29 October 2024
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Cheryl Schaffer
5.0 out of 5 stars Good reading!Reviewed in Australia on 28 August 2024
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Very good read at a good price.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Shocking, yet obvious! A must ready for parentsReviewed in Australia on 11 August 2024
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This is a must read for parents, it explores and explains many aspects of social media, friendships and communication that are essential for us to navigate the teenage years. I have not stopped telling all of my friends about this book.
2 people found this helpful
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Anon
3.0 out of 5 stars Don't recommend audiobookReviewed in Australia on 21 June 2024
This is a review about format not content.
I should preface with an acknowledgement that a lot of effort has been put into making the audio version of the book complete. Downloadable notes, graphs, etc.
I am a big fan of audiobooks, however, unless you absolutely have to use audible format, I highly recommend written format. It's so complicated to keep cross-referencing things, and this is the type of book that you will likely want to go back and refer to specific sections later.
4 people found this helpful
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Randy L.
5.0 out of 5 stars Key Book of 2024Reviewed in Canada on 4 November 2024
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This is a must read to understand our rapidly altering tech world. What is a cell phone doing to me and more importantly -- THEM ?
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M. A. Mus
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente libro con información documentada de las consecuencias del smartphone y las redesReviewed in Mexico on 22 August 2024
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Los daños que están ocasionando las redes y el uso excesivo del celular a la sociedad, sobretodo adolescentes y niños.
Urge tomar acción, es un tema de salud mental y emocional.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental para evoluirmos nessa discussãoReviewed in Brazil on 7 June 2024
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Livro fundamental, pois nos tira das discussões baseadas em "achismos" e oferece um leque amplo de dados e estudos que confirmam o que já estamos percebendo na prática: celulares e redes sociais nas mãos de crianças e adolescentes são a causa da epidemia de saúde mental que estamos vivendo.
A infância está morrendo atrás das telas e os pais ainda continuam a acreditar que está tudo bem. Não está tudo bem. E nós (sociedade, famílias, escolas etc). precisamos, com urgência, fazer algo sobre o assunto.
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Joe Terrell
5.0 out of 5 stars Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation Sparks Urgent Reflection and ActionReviewed in the United States on 30 April 2024
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Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation is, simply put, one of the most important and vital works of nonfiction I've read, and—quite possibly—the most influential book on my wife and I's parenting style and approach to technology.
The Anxious Generation is bombshell after bombshell detonating all of our preconceived assumptions about social media, Gen Z, parenting, "safetyism," mobile phones, childhood, education, and mental health. You've probably long suspected some of Haidt's observations and conclusions, but to see them put to words—and backed by heaps and heaps of research, neuroscience, philosophy, and spiritual musings—is to have your assumptions about what we consider "normal" rocked to its very core.
I'm so thankful I read this book prior to the birth of my daughter. This is a book I want to put into the hands of every parent, want-to-be parent, teacher, politician, tech CEO, or anyone who works/engages with children and/or cares about the collective mental health of our country. I firmly believe that if enough people—especially parents of young children—read this book, it could change the trajectory of our nation's approach to technology and childhood.
In short, Haidt's argument boils down to one salient point: We've overprotected our children from the real world, and underprotected them from the virtual world.. He advocates for a return to the "play-based childhood," and points the transition to the "phone-based childhood" as the primary driver of a significant increase in anxiety, depression, and self-harm among teenagers—especially teenage girls. Additionally, because of culture's perpetual fear-based approach to child-rearing, we've left our kids woefully unprepared for the pressures of the "real world"—and points to evidence of the startling number of Gen Zers and younger Millennials who appears trapped in a state of perpetual young adulthood.
The best aspect of The Anxious Generation is how easy it would've been for Haidt to just document a series of social ills and offer a diagnosis. But the back half of this book is full of extremely practical steps, application points, and "rules" for ensuring your children don't have their neurobiology hacked by tech companies who only want to monopolize their attention—mental health consequences be damned. And, even though the harms hone in on Gen Z and younger Millennials, I find myself often convicted of my own habitual phone use throughout the course of this book and I realize even I didn't escape unscathed.
Read this book. Buy a hard copy and highlight it. I want to give a copy to all of my friends, young parents, and teachers. And not just because I want to discuss this book—but, because as Haidt points out over and over again, this is a cultural issue that requires mass collective action in order to change. So, the more people who read this book and are startled awake by its findings, then the easier it'll be to implement the changes Haidt recommends.
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Alexeev
2.0 out of 5 stars Plastic and hard cover damageReviewed in Spain on 7 November 2024
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Status of plastic cover significantly damaged and the hardcover slightly damaged.
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