Book Study August 2025 - The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

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 finally 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, and perfectionism. 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.

Although this author is not a Christian we will bring our Christian point of view to a discussion of this topic that is affecting children, teens, and adults.

Invite a friend to join you in reading this book and then plan to meet you at Book Club at CrossLife’s Cafe on Wednesday, August 13, at 7:00 pm.

Sign up online, purchase your books, and come ready for a discussion led by Audrey McCartney. (Women's Ministry sponsored - open to all.)