The Anxious Generation

来自《纽约时报》畅销书《美国心灵的溺爱》的合著者，对青少年心理健康崩溃的重要调查，以及一个更健康、更自由的童年的计划
经过十多年的稳定或改善后，青少年的心理健康状况在 2010 年代初期急剧下降。 抑郁、焦虑、自残和自杀的比率急剧上升，在大多数指标上都增加了一倍多。 为什么？
在《焦虑的一代》一书中，社会心理学家乔纳森·海特阐述了同时席卷许多国家的青少年精神疾病流行的事实。 然后，他研究了童年的本质，包括为什么孩子需要玩耍和独立探索才能成长为有能力、茁壮成长的成年人。 海特展示了“以游戏为基础的童年”如何在 20 世纪 80 年代开始衰落，以及如何因 2010 年代初“以手机为基础的童年”的到来而被消灭。 他提出了十多种这种“童年的伟大重塑”干扰儿童社会和神经发育的机制，涵盖从睡眠不足到注意力分散、成瘾、孤独、社会传染、社会比较等各个方面。 他解释了为什么社交媒体对女孩的伤害比男孩更大，以及为什么男孩从现实世界退缩到虚拟世界，给自己、家庭和社会带来灾难性后果。
重要的是，海特发出了明确的行动号召。 他诊断了困扰我们的“集体行动问题”，然后提出了四个可能让我们自由的简单规则。 他描述了家长、教师、学校、科技公司和政府可以采取的措施，以结束精神疾病的流行并恢复更加人道的童年。
海特的职业生涯一直在困难的环境中以数据为依据讲真话——政治两极分化的社区、文化战争的校园，以及现在 Z 世代面临的公共卫生紧急情况。我们不能忽视他关于保护我们孩子的发现—— 以及我们自己——免受基于手机的生活所造成的心理伤害。
From New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind,an essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why?
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison. 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.
Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics , campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.