BONUS: The Tech Exit with Clare Morell

Clare Morell's "The Tech Exit" offers a comprehensive strategy for parents seeking to reduce their children's dependence on smartphones. The book provides actionable steps for initiating a digital detox and maintaining a low-tech lifestyle. It emphasizes the importance of replacing screen time with real-world activities and responsibilities to foster healthier habits. Morell addresses challenges like withdrawal symptoms and offers solutions for navigating school environments with prevalent screen use. It also highlights the positive impact of reducing screen time, such as improved relationships, creativity, and engagement with the real world.

In 'The Anxious Generation', Jonathan Haidt examines the sudden decline in the mental health of adolescents starting in the early 2010s. He attributes this decline to the shift from a 'play-based childhood' to a 'phone-based childhood', highlighting mechanisms such as sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, and perfectionism that interfere with children’s social and neurological development. Haidt proposes four simple rules to address this issue: no smartphones before high school, no social media before age 16, phone-free schools, and more opportunities for independence, free play, and responsibility. The book offers a clear call to action for parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments to restore a more humane childhood and end the epidemic of mental illness among youth.