Regular readers know we’ve covered this story before. Social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt has been working on a book about the topic of teen mental health and the impact of cell phones for some time. Today the Atlantic published a lengthy piece in which he lays out his case in detail. He starts with the data showing todays teens are not doing well.
Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic…
