It’s a version of “The Anxious Generation” for kids!
What is The Amazing Generation?
Your kids can soon have their own version of Jonathan Haidt’s bestseller “The Anxious Generation!” Haidt has teamed-up with author Catherine Price to write “The Amazing Generation: How To Choose Fun And Freedom In A Screen Filled World.” I already pre-ordered my copy on Bookshop.org!
Perfect for 5th – 8th graders, “The Amazing Generation” will empower young people to choose a life not dominated by screens. Haidt’s website says the book will be relevant to kids whether or not they already have smartphones or social media accounts. “It’s packed with surprising facts, a graphic novel, interactive challenges, secrets that tech leaders don’t want kids to know, and real-life anecdotes from young adults who regret getting smartphones at a young age and want to help the next generation avoid making the same mistakes.”
“But this isn’t just a book about what not to do. It’s a bold, optimistic, and practical guide to growing into your most authentic, confident, and adventurous self. Readers won’t just discover how to avoid becoming the next Anxious Generation. They’ll learn how to become amazing.“
When does The Amazing Generation come out?
December 30, 2025 is the release date for “The Amazing Generation How To Choose Fun And Freedom In A Screen Filled World.”
Where can I buy The Amazing Generation?
Pre-orders are already being taken by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Books A Million, Hudson Booksellers, Powell’s, and my favorite Bookshop.org (which supports small, local bookstores.)
You know it’s gonna be good when Oprah makes the announcement
What is The Anxious Generation about?
If you’ve been too busy stepping on Legos and driving to piano lessons, here’s your quick summary of the best book about screen time, youth, and social media!
“The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt argues that the play-based childhood of our youth has been replaced with the phone-based childhood of now, and it’s not good. No bueno. Negatory, good buddy.
But there’s hope!
In Jonathan Haidt’s book, he explains “How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” Haidt puts forth 4 things we can all do to get our children back (and get them some bonna fide childhoods instead of the hot garbage they’re living on TicTok.)
What are the 4 rules of The Anxious Generation ?
- No smartphones before high school.
- No social media before 16.
- Phone-free schools.
- Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.
In explaining children’s dire need for play, Haidt explains a concept I find fascinating: being “anti-fragile.”
A vase is fragile. Duh. If you drop it, it breaks.
But your immune system, for example, is ANTI-fragile. It requires exposure to germs and dirt to function properly and protect you as you age. Children are anti-fragile.
Why play is important for children?
Haidt argues that children need play to “process, and get past frustrations, minor accidents, teasing, exclusion, perceived injustices, and normal conflicts without falling prey to hours or days of inner turmoil. There is no way to live with other humans without conflicts and deprivations.”
This is why children love and need “risky” play. Climbing trees, rolling down hills, tying a rope around their sister’s neck to pretend that they’re Wonder Woman with a lasso. (Oh wait, was that just me?)
Back in my day….. or my parents’ day…..or forever going back in time, that’s what children did. They played. A lot. And mostly outside.
However, kids these days are either being bossed around by adults (soccer practice, tutoring, piano lessons) or staring at screens. Those do not facilitate the kind of “nutritious play” Haidt and other experts advocate. I’m hoping “The Amazing Generation” will explain to kids why it’s so important that they engage in free play!
Learn more about the benefits of play in our podcast!
Amazing kids need play!
Haidt suggests that our kids need “physical play, outdoors and with other children of mixed ages.” In other words, take your kids to the park and let them play tag with the other kids who are already there. Let your kids have a play date in your backyard without constantly telling them what to do.
“When parents, teachers, and coaches get involved, it becomes less free, less playful, and less beneficial. Adults usually can’t stop themselves from directing and protecting.” (So do yourself a favor; read a book on the porch and they will completely forget you are there until they need a band-aid.)
I’m guessing that you did a lot of this physical, outdoor kind of playing as a kid. Like flipping your bike over the dog and getting a sweet pair of knee scrapes. No? Again just me?
What is The Anxious Generation Theory?
Sometime in the late 1980s, parents started keeping their kids inside more due to a couple of highly-publicized kidnapping cases, a crime wave, and an increase in adult-led enrichment activities. “We decided that the real world was so full of dangers that children should not be allowed to explore it without adult supervision, even though the risks to children from crime, violence, drunk drivers, and most other sources have dropped steeply since the 1990s.” Around the same time, the internet came on the scene and kids started spending more time playing videogames, and eventually devices like iPads.
Unfortunately, a lot of parents think that by keeping their kids inside, they’re keeping them safe from child predators. But, “sex criminals nowadays spend most of their time in the virtual world because the internet makes it so much easier to communicate with children and to find and circulate sexual and violent videos involving children.”
Aside from access to child predators, a phone-based childhood presents four foundational harms:
- Social deprivation
- Sleep deprivation
- Attention fragmentation
- Addiction
Does screen time do more damage in boys or girls?
“The Anxious Generation” offers some fascinating statistics on how social media and screen time has affected males and females differently, starting with the arrival of the phone-based childhood in 2010. I expect that “The Amazing Generation” will explain this to teens and tweens in a safe way that inspires them to change.
- “Social media harms girls more than boys. Correlational studies show that heavy users of social media have higher rates of depression and other disorders than light users or nonusers.”
- “Experimental studies show that social media use is a cause, not just a correlate, of anxiety and depression. When people are assigned to reduce or eliminate social media for three weeks or more, their mental health usually improves.”
- “Boys are at greater risk than girls of ‘failure to launch.’ They are more likely to become young adults who are ‘not in education, employment, or training.”
- “One way that smartphones, amplified by high-speed internet- have affected boys’ lives is by providing unlimited, free, hardcore pornography….. Tech companies have made it easy for boys to satisfy powerful evolved desires without having to develop any skills that would help them make the transition to adulthood.”
- “….boys and girls, who followed different paths through the Great Rewiring, ended up in the same place, with a sudden and rapid increase in the feeling that their lives were meaningless.”
The extensive information in this book shows that we have a problem. A really big problem.
How can we inspire the Amazing Generation?
How can we transform the Anxious Generation into The Amazing Generation?!
Our kids need to screen less, and play more.
“The Anxious Generation” has two entire chapters on what government, tech companies, and schools can do to turn this ship around. But the most important chapter for you is what parents can do now:
For Parents of Young Children (Ages 0 to 5)
18-24 months: screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver. One hour or less per day.
2-5 years: Limit non-educational screen time to about one hour per weekday.
Ages 6 and older: Turn off screens during family meals and outings, use parental controls, avoid using screens to stop tantrums or as babysitters, and remove screens from bedrooms 60 minutes before bedtime.
For Parents of Children Ages 6-13
No more than 2 hours per day is recommended for screen-based recreational activities.
- Practice letting your kids out of your sight without them having a way to reach you.
- Encourage sleepovers, and don’t micromanage them.
- Encourage walking to school in a group.
- After school is for free play.
- Go camping.
- Find a sleep away camp with no devices and no safetyism.
- Form child-friendly neighborhoods and playborhoods.
For Parents of Teens Ages 13-18
- Increase their mobility (let your teen independently master local buses, trains, bike trails.)
- Rely more on your teen at home (Let them run errands for you, cook, clean.)
- Encourage your teen to find a part-time job.
- Find ways for them to nurture and lead. (Babysit, be a camp counselor etc.)
- Consider a high school exchange program.
- Bigger thrills in nature. (Let your teen and her friends enjoy backpacking, swimming, hiking etc.)
- Take a gap year after high school.
I can’t recommend this book enough! It has started a global movement for children to screen less and play more. I am so excited that kids will now get to hear this vital message in the sequel, “The Amazing Generation : How To Choose Fun And Freedom In A Screen Filled World.”
How to get your amazing kids off screens
Therapist Tessa Stuckey of Project LookUp gave us some amazing advice on reducing screen time in our podcast interview with her. Check it out here!
We also have classic outdoor games for kids and screen free gift ideas.
Who is Catherine Price? Co- author of The Amazing Generation
Dubbed “The Marie Kondo of Brains” by The New York Times, Catherine Price is an award-winning health and science journalist, speaker, and the author of books including The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again and How to Break Up with Your Phone. She is also the founder of the Screen/Life Balance movement, which is dedicated to helping people create healthier relationships with technology so that they can scroll less and live more. Her newest book with Jonathan Haidt is “The Amazing Generation: How to choose fun and freedom in a screen filled world.”
Her work has been featured in places including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, BBC, NPR, The Guardian, Wired, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning, among others. As a speaker and workshop leader, she’s presented in front of audiences including TED, SXSW, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Hyatt, Intel, Salesforce, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Leadercast, and has had the opportunity to share her thoughts about screen/life balance and a well lived life with the Surgeon General of the United States and Oprah Winfrey.
Who is Jonathan Haidt? Co-author of The Amazing Generation
“The Amazing Generation” author Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Jon received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. Since 2018 he has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. Alongside “The Anxious Generation and its sequel for kids, “The Amazing Generation,” Haidt is the author of “The Happiness Hypothesis” (2006) and of the New York Times bestsellers “The Righteous Mind” (2012) and” The Coddling of the American Mind” (2018, with Greg Lukianoff). He has given four TED talks. In 2019 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For more information on reducing screen time
If you think your kids are addicted to screens, read our article here.
Is social media safe for kids?
What are the best parenting books about screen time? Other than Jonathan Haidt’s amazing ones!
Check out our 5 best books about kids and screen time!
Parenting doesn’t have to be this hard! Hunt, Gather, Parent will change your life.
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