The Anxious Generation
Jonathan Haidt on what smartphones and social media did to childhood after 2010
Jonathan Haidt's 2024 book argues that a phone-based childhood replaced a play-based one in the early 2010s, and that teenage anxiety, depression and lost sleep followed. He pairs that with a second claim: parents grew overprotective in the physical world while leaving children unsupervised online. The prescriptions are collective rather than individual, such as delaying smartphones and social media, phone-free schools and more unsupervised play. Critics dispute how much of the mental health trend the data can pin on screens.
Who backs it
Sorted by strength of stance
- Bill GatesRecommends
Microsoft co-founder · Gates Notes reading lists
Scary but convincing, in his words, on how phones rewired adolescence. His daughter, a pediatrician, recommended it; what worries him most is the effect on the ability to concentrate, since his own Think Weeks came out of a childhood with nothing to scroll.
Source: Gates Notes: The cost of growing up online
Aimed at the same thing
Other entries filed under focus or stress.
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Digital Minimalism
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The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness
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The Inner Game of Tennis
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Backed by 1 of 44 stacks: 0 do it, 1 recommend it, 0 have discussed it - Book$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
This Is Water
The Kenyon commencement speech by the author of Infinite Jest, about a 15-minute read
Backed by 1 of 44 stacks: 0 do it, 1 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
Book entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.