Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 book, The Anxious Generation, has sparked discussion about the effects of smartphones on teens’ mental health and developmental outcomes. For those that want more research and recommendations, here are books discussing similar topics, inspired by The Anxious Generation Resource Library. If you question the data’s findings, you aren’t alone – you can read more in The Guardian and Forbes, however, counter perspectives have yet to be widely researched and published.
153.733 HAR
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again / Johann Hari
Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention—and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.
155.418 GRA
Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life / Peter Gray
A developmental psychologist argues that children who are freed to follow their own interests through self-directed play will become better learners and achievers than the way they learn in modern school, which he says shows them that learning is work and not fun.
305.2 TWE
Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future / Jean M. Twenge
An expert on generational change looks at the six generations of Americans currently alive, from the Silents to the still-to-be-named generation born after 2012, and how they connect, conflict and compete with one another.
305.2309 HAI
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness / Jonathan Haidt
Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
305.235 TWE
iGEN: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood / Jean M. Twenge
A highly readable and entertaining first look at how today’s members of iGen—the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later—are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation, from the renowned psychologist and author of Generation Me.
305.31 REE
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It / Richard V. Reeves
Reeves looks at the structural challenges that face boys and men and offers fresh and innovative solutions that turn the page on the corrosive narrative that plagues this issue. Of Boys and Men argues that helping the other half of society does not mean giving up on the ideal of gender equality. Also available as an e-audiobook on hoopla.
616.8584 MAR
Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age / Carl D. Marci
Carl Marci shows that our phone and Facebook habits aren’t just distractions; they’re altering our brains, harming our ability to communicate intimately. Fortunately, there are ways out. More than a critic, Marci offers solutions for tech-life balance
616.8584 PRI
How to Break Up with Your Phone / Catherine Price
You’ll discover how phones and apps are designed to be addictive and how the time we spend on them damages our abilities to focus, think deeply, and form new memories. You’ll then make customized changes to your settings, apps, environment, and mindset that will enable you to take back control of your life—both on your phone and off.
649.1 CHE
The Screentime Solution: A Judgment-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family / Emily Cherkin
Cherkin teaches parents to become ‘tech-intentional’: using screen-based technologies to enhance, nurture, and align with family values while avoiding, delaying, or limiting screentime that interferes with healthy mental, physical, cognitive, and emotional development.
HOOPLA
Free-Range Kids: How parents Can Let Go and Let Grow / Lenore Skenazy
In the newly revised and expanded second edition of Free-Range Kids, New York columnist-turned-movement leader Lenore Skenazy delivers a compelling and entertaining look at how we got so worried about everything our kids do, see, eat, read, wear, watch, and lick-and how to bid a whole lot of that anxiety goodbye. Available as an e-audiobook on hoopla.
HOOPLA
iRules: What Every Tech-Healthy Family Needs to Know about Selfies, Sexting, Gaming, and Growing Up / Janell Burley Hofmann
In iRules, Hofmann provides families with the tools they need to find a balance between technology and human interaction through a philosophy she calls Slow Tech Parenting. In the book, she educates parents about the online culture tweens and teens enter the minute they go online, exploring issues like cyberbullying, friend fail, and sexting, as well as helping parents create their own iRules contracts to fit their families’ needs. Available as an e-audiobook on hoopla.
AI | October 2024
