The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist known for his research on morality, cultural psychology, and the factors that influence human behavior and social interactions. Born in 1963, Haidt completed his undergraduate studies at Yale and earned his PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, where his doctoral dissertation focused on moral development.

Haidt’s academic career in psychology has taken an interdisciplinary approach that blends insights from anthropology, sociology, and political science. Haidt conducted groundbreaking work on moral foundations theory, which he developed with colleagues. This theory proposes that human moral reasoning is based on innate, universal psychological systems shaped by cultural influences. His 2006 book, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, explores how ancient philosophical ideas about happiness and virtue can be understood through contemporary psychological research. This work established Haidt as a leading thinker in positive psychology and moral philosophy, gaining him a wide readership beyond the academic community.

In The Anxious Generation, Haidt applies his expertise in social and moral psychology to address the mental health crisis affecting adolescents in the digital age. Drawing on extensive research, Haidt argues that the widespread use of smartphones and