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

 This book came highly recommended from a former coworker of mine. I picked it up on Audible, and then ended up buying a physical copy somewhere along the line, and got to the physical copy before the audiobook. I've been really interested in this topic as a parent and a teacher. Like Haidt, I've seen progressively alarming trends in student well being and mental health in recent years, and it was accelerated by the pandemic.

The Anxious Generation discusses what happened to teens in the wake of the transition away from flip phones to smart phones starting around 2012. Haidt discusses the effects of social media, and how these apps are designed to be addictive. He discusses solutions that parents, schools, and governments should take to help build resilience in our children and teens and protect them online.

First of all, I thought this book was very thorough. I felt that Haidt addressed so many aspects of this discussion. I think it was helpful that he presented his research and then gave actionable solutions for everyday kind of people.

I don't have really many issues with the book other than it was dense. I found myself slogging through it slowly, most of the time only really able to take a chapter at a time. I don't think that this was unproductive, but it is extremely academic. I think the amount of research included was necessary to be convincing. There is a lot of diverse research tied to this. I thought that the research about social media and the effects of unsupervised screen time was really interesting.

In recent years, I've noticed as students have become more and more addicted to their phones. They almost can't function in the classroom without their device in front of them, and it's such a huge distraction. Last year, a law was passed to ban cell phones in the classroom. It's been tricky to enforce with such rampant use of phones, and it's a battle that's honestly been exhausting. This year, the law has been expanded to say that phones are banned during the entire school day. I wonder how this is going to change in the long run (I get the impression that it's not much...) and that the enforcement of it all will be up to me. I'm hoping that it'll be better next year, now that students are more used to the policy.

Anyway, I do think this is important research, and I do think parents especially need to read it. I rated it

⭐⭐⭐⭐

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