Free the Anxious Generation Movement: A Call for K-12 School Leaders

This edWeb podcast is sponsored by Penguin Random House Education and Penguin Press.
The webinar recording can be accessed here.

Adolescents are in a mental health crisis. Major depressive episodes among American teens have more than doubled since 2010 as their social lives moved onto smartphones loaded with social media apps. The only available explanation for why this happened in many countries at the same time is that the ancient “play-based childhood” was replaced by the “phone-based childhood.” This “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism.

Schools and education departments can take the lead in setting new norms that will roll back the phone-based childhood and restore more free play and independence. In this edWeb podcast, social psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt walks educators through the research on our urgent youth mental health crisis, present four norms for collective action, and outline what schools can do now to improve mental health for kids and teens. Listeners should consider what questions they have for Dr. Jonathan Haidt about the role of schools in dealing with social media, phones, and adolescent mental health issues.

This edWeb podcast is of interest to K-12 teachers, librarians, school leaders, district leaders, education technology leaders, and school counselors and psychologists.

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