The Anxious Generation: How Smartphones Rewired Childhood and What We Can Do About It

Why are today’s teenagers more anxious, depressed, and struggling with mental health than any generation before them? Jonathan Haidt—renowned psychologist and truth-teller in the most difficult spaces—delivers a startling and urgent diagnosis of the crisis unfolding in front of us.

Between 2010 and 2015, childhood was rewired. Smartphones and social media replaced real-world play, face-to-face connection, and independence with endless scrolling, social comparison, and digital addiction. At the same time, parental overprotection stripped kids of the very challenges they needed to become resilient, self-reliant adults. The result? A mental health emergency among teenagers worldwide.

"We did not let them grow up, and then we gave them devices that keep them trapped in childhood."

In The Anxious Generation, Haidt uncovers four fundamental ways a phone-based childhood disrupts human development—through sleep deprivation, social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation, and addiction. He explores how this crisis affects boys and girls differently, using cutting-edge psychological and biological research to reveal what’s really happening beneath the surface.

But this isn’t just a warning—it’s a call to action. Haidt outlines practical solutions for parents, schools, and policymakers to reclaim childhood, offering a hopeful and actionable path toward a healthier, happier future for the next generation.