The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

This books makes the connection between rising mental health issues in children and teens around 2010 to the introduction of the smartphone and social media. This also leads to children spending less time outside and less time in free play, further accellerating this decline.

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.

Jonathan Haidt proposes four foundational reforms:

1. No smartphones before high school
2. No social media before 16
3. Phone-free school
4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence

I really liked this book, it’s very data-driven and gives good advice. If you have kids under 18 or are working as a teacher, this is a must-read.

Edit: It might not be as data-driven as it appears and instead go for the good old confirmation bias. There‘s a podcast episode on If Books Could Kill about this book which looks critical on the methods in this book. Thanks, Daniel!