⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Anxious Generation by Haidt
| Full Title | The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness |
| Authors | Jonathan Haidt |
| Year Published | 2024 |
| Date Read | April 8, 2025 |
| Rating | 4/5 stars |
| Retention | 14 Anki cards created |
I read this immediately after Free to Learn by Peter Gray. It’s interesting how much overlap there is in the two books on the subject of play, even though this one is published over a decade later. Indeed, Haidt mentions Gray as a source multiple times in Anxious Generation, but I’m not sure he necessarily adds much more to that side of the topic than Gray already went over. One thing that I thought was cool to include from this side though was data on how injury rates among boys dropped quite significantly during the 2010s. In 2012, they were the age range with the highest rate of unintentional injuries — a decade later, they were the lowest! That’s crazy.
Excerpt from Chapter 7, What Is Happening to Boys?
I thought the inclusion of statistics like this one was great — Haidt includes quite a few throughout the book, and they are well-sourced through the online supplement.
The second part of the ‘anxiety’ is online-based stuff, primarily social media, pornography, and (to a limited extent) gaming. The idea is that these products are particularly bad for children with developing brains. As someone that had a serious gaming habit as a teenager and young adult (one that I can still summon if I find a particularly good title), I think I’m on-board with this argument. The basic reforms that Haidt proposes I find to be quite reasonable — disallow phone use during school hours; no smartphones or social media before high school. It made me consider: would something like the first rule be a good idea for parents as well? If I’m going to be asking my child not to use a phone from wake-up to ~3pm, it seems reasonable that I could lead by example, especially since as an adult I use my phone for alot more than simply ‘utility’ needs like calls/texts before that time.
Overall, I thought this was a solid read, though I think less aspirational and clearly much more targeted towards parents / future parents than Free to Learn, which is why this gets 4 instead of 5 stars. Ultimately, though, it leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling: what will the authors of the future Anxious Generation-style book be writing about raising kids in the 2030s~40s?