In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt discusses the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries simultaneously. He discusses the nature of childhood, including what and why children need play along with independent exploration and adventures free from adult intercession to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the shift from a "play-based childhood" to the "phone-based childhood" affects children, adolescents and young adults. This text presents what has recently interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. The book also outlines why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, and how this has become a disastrous consequence for themselves, their families, and our societies.

This course will focus on how this decline for children and adolescents affects our teaching day and the academic success or lack thereof for students.