Book Review
"The Anxious Generation" 
5+/5 stars
"Required Reading for parents who want to do a good job" 
*******
Of the book: 

1. 293 pages of prose over 12 chapters (=24.4pps/chapter). 3~4 afternoons worth of reading.

2. About 420 references, as well as 587 point citations over 293 pages of prose (2.0 per page= very well sourced), and this is due to his having a full-time researcher for the book (Thomas Sowell has had a full-time researcher, Na Liu, for many books.)

This is a brilliant book. 

Maybe I'm partial, but I had every reason to expect it to be a good book: 

1. All of his other books have sold very well, and have been put out by very respectable publishing houses. ("The Happiness Hypothesis" was put out by Basic Books.)

2. Three of his other four books have been translated into Chinese. (That is the surest sign, because VERY VERY FEW Mainland Chinese people are interested in leisure books. So, ONLY if it is known that somebody has something to say will a publisher take the risk to translate it.)

3. His first book was published in 2006, and this book was published in 2024. That's about one book every 4.5 years on average, But they still sell very well when they do come out. It appears that Haidt spends a lot of time developing his ideas/waits until he has something to actually say. 

4. It taps into a lot of lines of reasoning that have been picked up by other best-selling books and that have stood the test of time. (Lenore Skenazy actually co-wrote one of the chapters of this book). "Dopamine Nation" about the damaging effects of handheld devices. "Free Range Parenting," about the benefits of a relaxed hand with parenting. "Bad Therapy" and "Irreversible Damage," about the danger of online community generated mental illnesses. "Anti-fragile" about learning under stress adaptations. "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog," about the balance between being a child's being stressed enough to learn vs stressed enough to cause a disorder. 

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Second order thoughts: 

1. It's supremely ironic that a Jewish atheist (ie, the author of this book) ends up describing the benefits of normative Jewish practice: a) Community; b) marking the boundaries of time; c) face to face interaction; d) limiting the use of electronic devices. He has a secular version of something that people have been practicing for several thousand years, and even up until today. 

2. He has a lot of good *theoretical* solutions. (But then so do all books that are trying to address some such problem.)

In reality, the granularity to solve these problems is way beyond the problems of any government--except for maybe North Korea. (They're even wrestling with this problem in totalitarian China, where turning off the internet is a snap of a bureaucrat's fingers.)

It has been known for a *very* long time (Joseph Tainter, 1988, "Collapse of Complex....") that sometimes governments just reach problems that have levels of complexity that they cannot handle. (Although, individual states seem to be *slowly* catching on to limiting cell phone usage during class.)

3. I think that the appropriate decision making unit for these problems is parental. And as long as it takes for the government to figure out things, it might as well be.

We, in our home:

a. Have no television;
b. Send our kids to private school (where phone use is also restricted) 
c. Limit computer time to 30 minutes per day and 
d. Maintain that a flip phone is all that is necessary in order to be able to maintain parental contact. Some homes in this (Orthodox Jewish) community do not even have internet connections. 90% do not have television. Our family is among the 90%.

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Good Points:

1. Four foundational harms of phone-based childhood: 

a. Social deprivation 
b. Sleep deprivation 
c. Attention fragmentation 
d. Addiction

2. Every chapter has a recapitulation at the end.

3. These suppositions that the author makes are not floating abstractions, nor just words for their own sake. His point is to describe actual, clear data that has clear breaking points.

4. Girls use social media more than boys, and experience greater harm from same:

a. Girls are more sensitive to visual comparisons; 
b. Female aggression is most often expressed with attempts to harm relationships and reputation (boys usually just punch each other and get it over with);
c. Women and girls more readily share emotion - - and are therefore more vulnerable to sociogenic illnesses;
d. Internet is made it easier for nasty/ old/ bad men to stalk young girls. 

5. Four Foundational Reforms:

a. No smartphones before high school
b. No social media before 16
c. Phone free schools
d. Unsupervised play

6. If you are not a religious person (the author is an atheist), you can create a sense of all just by going out and contemplating nature or paying attention to your surroundings. Take a walk on a nature trail. Anything to get some fresh air and away from the phone.

I don't think there is a single bit of waffle in this book. The author knew what he wanted to say, and he recapitulated his points at the end of every chapter and several times throughout the book because the purpose was to make the reader remember and not just fill up space. 

If You appreciate Lenore Skenazy, you also love this book. (We are Skenazy disciples.)

Verdict: Strongly recommended, at the new price.

Vocabulary:

Behavioral activation system (discover mode)
Behavioral inhibition system (defend mode)
sociogenic epidemic
agency (The desire to stand out and have an effect on the world) 
communion (The desire to connect and develop a sense of belonging)
Collective action problems / social dilemmas

Quotes and notes:

1. "Play is the work of childhood, and all young mammals have the same job: wire up your brain by playing vigorously and often.'

2. "We might refer to smartphones and tablets in the hands of children as experience blockers."

3. " Maybe it's because it's not healthy for any human being to have unfettered access to everything, everywhere, all the time, for free."

4. (Not in this book. Quote by Michael Ché. Pertinent nonetheless.) "You want this kid to pay attention in class? He doesn't have attention deficit, he's got titties in his pocket." 

5. It could include establishing family rituals 
such as a digital Sabbath (one day per week with reduced or no digital technology combined with enjoyable in-person activities).