Many parents whose children are at present nine or 10 years of age will shortly find themselves in an unknown territory. This was not so two decades ago.

Research on adolescence had generated, over the previous half-century, a considerable amount of knowledge about this turbulent period of life. Teachers were told about its typical characteristics in different cultures. Some who became school counsellors knew what to do when faced with difficult behaviour or the emotional turmoil that children experience when adolescence sets in. The changes their minds and personalities go through were viewed with confident familiarity by staple psychology texts.

This is no longer the case. A new book, The Anxious Generation, argues that children’s access to smartphones and their participation in social media has created an altogether new reality.

The author, Jonathan Haidt, presents copious scientific evidence to discuss the impact of virtual reality on the adolescent mind. The latter’s vulnerability is no news, but the tidal wave of mental illnesses among the young certainly is.

Haidt is concerned mainly with American children, but the scenario he draws is global. We can witness it in our cities and district towns, and we can’t judge how far........

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