What’s so bad about a teenager being on a phone? Aren’t they just chatting to their friends? Isn’t this just community in the digital age? Whether you are worried or unconcerned about the impact of Smartphones on our teenagers, this is a great book to inform your thinking.

Anxious generation is a brilliant exposition of the impact of smartphones, social media and the reduction in outdoor play on our children. It is practical and nuanced. Haidt tracks the correlations between smartphone childhoods and anxiety and tries to pin down the causations. The correlations are extraordinary but also contested. But the detailed way Haidt explains the impact of a smartphone on a teenager helps us to see the impact on yourself and on your kids.

The difference in the impact on boys and girls is fascinating. For boys, their risk areas are gaming and porn with the result of addiction and withdrawal. But with girls the impact is even more concerning. Teenage girls are most at risk. They can get caught up in the ‘self-esteem crushing vortex’ that social media apps create in their algorithmic pursuit of attention. The result is a wave of mental health issues in our teenage girls that we have never seen before. We need to be better as a community at protecting our children.

The caution around digital protection is well balanced by the challenge to more ‘dangerous’ play in physical spaces. Our children don’t have enough opportunity for unsupervised free play. In conjunction with making digital spaces safer we need to release them more in the real world, to make mistakes, to take risks, and to learn. This is vital to our socialisation. We need to learn how to live in groups without an adult to solve our conflicts.

I love this challenge to my parenting. This feels like a particularly tough challenge when there are so many real dangers for our children. But it has fueled in me the determination to find spaces where my kids can make mistakes, define their own path, and live the consequences, without the risk of tragedy.

I am a conservative dad when it comes to phones and social media. This is not a book my daughters wanted me to read. But the nuance, data and well worked explanations have meant that the quality of the conversations in my house have gone way up. My kids often talk with frustration of their friends phone use. This book will help you raise the level of discussion you have around phones and social media.

Social media is part of our lives. But we need to be aware of its effects. We need to educate ourselves so that we can help our kids make good decisions. This book is a crucial step in doing exactly that.

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