Reclaiming Childhood: Embracing Play Amidst Modern Challenges

In 2022, 46 percent of American teens said they were online almost constantly. Around 80 percent of high school seniors said they use social media nearly every day, but only 30 percent say they meet up with friends every day.

Since 2010 – roughly the year touch-screen smartphones and social media apps blew up – the number of girls between 12 and 17 that reported a major depressive episode more than doubled, to 28 percent. Emergency room visits and hospitalizations for girls harming themselves skyrocketed too, along with the suicide rate amongst teenage boys. 

Our guest today calls this a total rewiring of childhood, as smartphones and overprotective parenting warp those crucial formative years into a rollercoaster of anxiety and depression. Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the NYU Stern School of Business, and the author of several books – his latest is “The Anxious Generation – How The Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”