Life Fright

With the pervasiveness of smartphones and social media, the world has never been more at our fingertips. Information can be accessed and shared in an instant and our presence in the digital world grows in footprint with each passing year. Children in particular are susceptible to the dangers of declining mental health, more specifically anxiety attributed to increased social media and digital use starting at younger and younger ages.

The Anxious Generation sounds the alarm behind this growing concern while detailing steps parents can undertake to adequately shield and equip their kids from the harms of engaging in social media and adult content online. From advocating for more parental controls on devices to establishing the ideal minimum age for children to have social media accounts (16), Haidt compares the mental health toll from being chronically online across different generations and how this is impacting society with many kids and adults struggling to cope and interact in the real world. I recommend checking this book out regardless of whether you have kids as it is relevant to anyone, especially the research on how psychology is used against us by social media companies seeking to fine tune its addictive properties and keep us lingering longer at the expense of connecting with people outside the screen.