From Patrick Hardyman

Blanchardville

To the Editor:

If you want a good guide to understand the negative impact that social media has inflicted on the mental health of children, purchase a copy of the book, “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. It was published in 2024 by Penguin Press and has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for Hardcover Nonfiction for 93 weeks. The subheading for the book: “How the Great Rewriting of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”.

In a recent Associated Press story in the Wisconsin State Journal, the authors detailed the upcoming “Landmark” trials that will be taking place in Los Angeles, Oakland, and New Mexico where social media giants like Meta and Google will have to answer to the charge that their platforms are addictive and harmful to children.

A similar charge was made by Jonathan Haidt in his book’s Introduction: “They hooked children during vulnerable developmental stages, while their brains were rapidly rewiring in responses to incoming stimulation. This included social media companies, which inflicted their greatest damage on girls, and video game companies and pornography sites, which sank their hooks deepest into boys.”

My advice to parents — get the book and keep your eyes and ears attuned to these “landmark” trials.