The Anxious Generation
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Anxious Generation
| Full title | The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness |
|---|---|
| Author | Jonathan Haidt |
| Published | 2024 |
| Pages | 395 |
| Recommended | 3 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Jonathan Haidt’s argument that the decline of unsupervised play and the arrival of the front-facing-camera smartphone collided around 2010–2015 in a “great rewiring” of childhood, visible in rising adolescent anxiety and depression. The causal claim is genuinely contested, but it is the most-read statement of the case and the reference text for a policy argument now being made in schools and legislatures. |
Where I heard about it
- Charlie Kirk — named among his must-read books in @NJBeisner’s video, September 2025.
- Michael Mauboussin — one of his favourite books of 2024, December 2024.
My note
“good but summarize as cellphones awful” — I haven’t read the book; that’s the gist I’ve absorbed, not a first-hand verdict.
About this edition
Haidt closes with four prescriptions — no smartphones before high school, no social media before sixteen, phone-free schools, and far more unsupervised play. The book has drawn substantial published criticism from psychologists on the strength of the evidence.
Connections
- Books That Have Shaped Kale (Max Forsey): on the list, glossed “what we must not build for kids”.
- Jonathan Haidt — the author, whose earlier work on moral psychology and free speech runs into this.
- Social Media — the mechanism the book blames.
- Mental Health — the outcome it measures.
- Parenting — where its four prescriptions land.
- Michael Mauboussin — one of the two curators who recommended it.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.