Zach Rausch
Zach Rausch is Haidt's primary research partner and the chief researcher for The Anxious Generation. He played a role in collecting and organizing the experimental and correlational studies used to support the book's central claims.
A Visionary Billionaire That Sends Children to Mars
Haidt frames the beginning and end of the book with a hypothetical scenario, asking readers (who Haidt addresses as parents) to consider whether they would let a visionary billionaire send their children to colonize Mars. He then compares this to the way that tech companies have radically transformed childhood by potentially unsafe means. Later, Haidt argues for bringing children "home," back down to earth.
Peter Gray
In Chapter 2, Haidt cites the work of Peter Gray, a developmental psychologist at Boston College and a leading play researcher. According to Gray, “play requires suppression of the drive to dominate and enables the formation of long-lasting cooperative bonds." Free physical play outdoors with children of mixed ages is the most advantageous because it is closely aligned with how we evolved.
Émile Durkheim
Throughout The Anxious Generation, Haidt mentions the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is often considered to be one of the principal architects of modern social science. In particular, Haidt discusses Durkheim's work The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
Key Scholars of Gene-Culture Coevolution
The anthropologists Rob Boyd and Pete Richerson are the leading scholars of gene-culture coevolution. They developed Dual-Inheritance Theory, which applies Darwinian evolution to culture and explains how genes and culture have intertwined to shape our species. Haidt discusses their work on the human biases toward conformity and prestige. Joe Henrich, a student of Rob Boyd's, did the major work on prestige bias.
Sean Parker
Sean Parker is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist who served as Facebook's first president. Haidt quotes Parker admitting that Facebook and Instagram sought to create “a social-validation feedback loop...exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology" (Chapter 2).
Nassim Taleb
Nassim Taleb is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist who wrote the 2012 book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Haidt repeatedly draws from this book by categorizing children as antifragile.
Researchers on Children's Risky Play
Ellen Sandseter and Leif Kennair are Norwegian researchers and professors known for their work on children's risky play, which they define as “thrilling and exciting forms of play that involve a risk of physical injury” (Chapter 3). Other notable play researchers include Mariana Brussoni and Peter Gray. The work of these researchers demonstrates to Haidt "that antifragile children need play that involves some risk to develop competence and overcome their childhood anxieties."
Frank Furedi
Frank Furedi is a British sociologist who published a book titled Paranoid Parenting: Why Ignoring the Experts May Be Best for Your Child. He analyzes how social, economic, and technological changes in the late 20th century changed parental behavior in Britain and America. Specifically, British and American parents began to supervise their children far more than other places around the world.
Laurence Steinberg
Laurence Steinberg is a developmental psychologist who writes that the adolescent brain is more vulnerable to the effects of sustained stressors. This can tilt into mental disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Steinberg agrees with Haidt that some stress is beneficial to development, but too much is detrimental (Chapter 4).
Alexis Spence
Alexis Spence is an adolescent girl that Haidt writes about in Chapter 6. She opened an Instagram account when she was 11, against her parents' wishes. The app exposed her to pro-anorexia content that contributed to eating disorders and depression.
Luca
Luca is a young man from North Carolina who, at the age of 12, was allowed to withdraw from school and continue studying online. Over the next decade he adopted a lifestyle reminiscent of the Japanese hikikomori, young people who choose to withdraw from the pressures of life and live like hermits. Luca sleeps during the day and spends his nights playing video games and surfing the internet. He expresses pride in this lifestyle.
Yi-Mei
Drawing on the work of psychology professor and researcher Dacher Keltner (the preeminent scientist studying awe), Haidt assigned his students to go on an awe walk. This produced the "most beautiful" written student reflections that Haidt had seen in his 30 years as a professor. He shares the reflection of one student, Yi-Mei, in Chapter 8.
Lenore Skenazy
Lenore Skenazy is the author of the influential 2009 book Free-Range Kids, which advocates for giving more independence and less supervision to children. This profoundly influenced the way Haidt and his wife chose to raise their children. Haidt went on to co-found an organization with Skenazy and others called Let Grow.
Shane Voss
The principal Shane Voss implemented a phone ban at Mountain Middle School in Durango, Colorado in 2012. The country surrounding the school used to have among the highest teen suicide rates in Colorado. However, things improved after the cell phone ban: for instance, the students' academic performance went up.
Debra Harrell
Debra Harrell is a single mother from South Carolina who allowed her daughter, Regina, to spend time at a local playground while she worked her shift at McDonald's. Someone questioned why Regina was alone and subsequently called the police. The fact that she was arrested demonstrates the criminalization of working-class mothers, particularly women of color.
Kevin Stinehart
Kevin Stinehart is a fourth-grade teacher at the Central Academy of the Arts, an elementary school in rural South Carolina. He increased the frequency of free play for his students by lengthening recess with little adult intervention, opening the school playground for half an hour before the school day, and offering a Play Club. As a result, his students became happier, kinder, and exhibited fewer behavior problems.
Tristan Harris
Tristan Harris is a technology ethicist who left Google in 2015 and later founded the Center for Humane Technology. In 2013, he created a PowerPoint presentation for his fellow Google employees titled “A Call to Minimize Distraction and Respect Users’ Attention." Now, he aims to align technology with human interests.
