The Anxious Generation

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt sets out why depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide among adolescents rose sharply in the early 2010s across many countries at once. He describes a play-based childhood that began to fade in the 1980s and gave way to a phone-based one, a shift he calls the great rewiring of childhood. Among the harms he names are lost sleep, fragmented attention, addiction and social deprivation, and he explains why girls and boys suffer in different ways. He also proposes four rules and steps for parents, schools, tech companies and governments. Published in 2024, it has influenced age verification rules for websites in several countries.

Barack Obama included it among his favorite books of 2024, and Andrew Huberman called it an incredibly important book when he interviewed Haidt on his podcast.