The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

This is the last book I finished in 2025 and is perhaps the most important book I read all year. Since it was published in March of 2024, I have been hearing about it, positive and negative. I have read and heard from those who wholeheartedly agree with it and support its conclusions and remedies. I have also heard criticism that perhaps there are other causes of increased mental illness in the world’s children, that the research was cherry picked to reach the author’s chosen conclusions. Finally, in the last week of last year, I decided to read the book and decide for myself.

The author of this book was a co-writer on a previous book about youth, The Coddling of the American Mind. That book is a sort of prelude to this one. At least it highly influenced Haidt’s decision to write this one. In that previous book, he cites what he calls safetyism as an issue in raising and educating children. By this he means protecting children and young people from the problems of the world. Instead they need to learn to face them and deal with them at age-appropriate levels. In The Anxious Generation he lays out the case for why social media is rewiring the world’s children from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood and how that is creating our present day mental health crisis.

He starts by outlining the surge in mental health issues around the world and pinning down the timing of this uptick to 2010 to 2015. He then shows how mammals in general and humans specifically need to play as children in order to learn how to be healthy adults. When children play they face challenges and harms that they learn to deal with. If this is short circuited by trading playtime for phone time, these lessons are never learned. Much of this state is due to parents wanting to protect their children from the potential harms of the world. But doing so prevents them from entering discovery mode and seeking out the risky play that kids need to grow up healthy.

The core of the book is when the author outlines and details what he calls the four foundational harms of social media. These are:

Social Deprivation
Sleep Deprivation
Attention Fragmentation
Addiction

He then goes on to explore how and why social media is more harmful for girls than boys as well as how boys are also experiencing these foundational harms from a different direction (video games and pornography).

The final section on how to address these issue is welcome after all the bad news. After laying down a foundation for collective action, Haidt goes on to outline what government, schools, and parents can do to begin to remedy this dire situation.

What impressed me most about this book was the dedication to scholarship. Everything is based on study after study. He is maintaining a website that links to all the studies and shows the numbers used to come to the conclusions in the book. This includes examining possible other causes. But none fits the data as well as those outlined in this book. The author is also open to the idea that he could be wrong. He plans to update and correct anything in that vein on this online supplement at http://anxiousgeneration.com/supplement.

I found the evidence and conclusions of this book extremely persuasive. It matches my experience with my own children and those I see around me. I only wish that this level of information had been available when I was raising children.

My rating: 5/5

Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

I subscribe to and read Cory Doctorow’s blog at pluralistic.net. He publishes there regularly, discussing his ideas on the intersection of technology and politics. When he recently published a book in a similar vein discussing the concept and word he coined back in 2022, I immediately purchased it. I finally got around to actually reading it this month.

Doctorow explained enshittification in a January 2023 article in Wired magazine:

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification….

Part 1 of the book shows how this happened with four platforms (Facebook, Amazon, iPhone, and Twitter). Part 2 is a short chapter how we got on the path to platform decay. Part 3 is a detailed review of what previously prevented enshittification and how those stopgaps were eroded. Finally, in Part 4 the author lays out a plan for overcoming the issues he laid out in the previous three parts of the book.

The book is engaging and informative. The writing is conversational and lays out technical ideas in everyday language that anyone can understand. This is a primer for our times on how the internet has become the cesspool that it is and how to get back to what Doctorow calls “an old, good internet.” It is an excellent, if not essential, read for everyone with one exception. If you regularly read his blog, none of this is new. It is, however, an excellent and concise explanation of the author’s technology philosophy. I highly recommend it.

My rating: 4/5

More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner

I regularly read John Warner’s newsletter “The Biblioracle Recommends”. I thoroughly enjoy his takes on reading and writing there. So, when he started mentioning a book he was working on about the intersection of AI and writing, I was intrigued. I bought a copy on the day of release (4 February 2025) and recently finished reading it.

Warner is a former college writing teacher and currently a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His book addresses the concern that many have of how the growth of generative AI tools (like ChatGPT) may affect writing and how it is taught. In short, the author’s view is that we are looking at the question the wrong way. In fact, he says that AI can’t read or write. Sure, it produces text through an automated guessing process that churns out grammatically correct text. But that isn’t writing. Only humans can read and write. About the concern of using ChatGPT in education: “Students using ChatGPT to complete assignments that don’t mean anything to them and seem unconnected to learning is only sensible. This is not a character defect of students but the sign of a bad disconnect between schooling and learning.”

The other main idea that I really connected with is that writing is a process not an output. “The economic style of reasoning [that stresses efficiency above all else] crowds out other considerations—namely, moral ones. It privileges the speed and efficiency with which an output is produced over the process that led to that output. But for we humans, process matters. Our lives are experienced in the world of process, not outputs.” Human beings aren’t efficient. Trying to make them so turns us into machines and automatons. This book is well written and essential reading in today’s world.

My rating: 5/5

Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow

This book has yet to be released. I received a copy through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. I was on the lookout for this book as i had read the other two in this trilogy. This one is due to be published on February 18. You can purchase a copy from the author here.

The trilogy has been a reverse chronology. This final book in the series is Marty Hench’s origin story. In it, we learn how he came to flunk out of MIT, start a company with his roommate, and move to Silicon Valley to start his career as a forensic accountant. Once there, he is hired by a trio of religious leaders (a rabbi, a priest, and a Mormon bishop) who are taking advantage of their customers by selling them computers and accessories only from them. The bulk of the story is how he and a group of women who used to work for the Reverend Sirs fight to free their customers from this lock in.

It doesn’t sound that interesting when I write it out. I mean, Marty is a forensic accountant for crying out loud. Can you get more boring than accounting? But somehow the author makes forensic accounting exciting, cool, and intriguing all at the same time. The book really does have the feel of the early computer revolution and the optimism that went with it. A thoroughly enjoyable ride and fitting conclusion to the saga of Marty Hench. I will miss him.

My rating: 4/5

Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant

I’ve heard about this book many times in the year since it was first published. I think I first read about it when Cory Doctorow reviewed it on his blog. But the most recent time it came to my attention and that finally nudged me to pick it up was Austin Kleon’s weekly Friday post on Substack. With all that is going on in the world with technology in general and AI in particular, I felt it was time to read this. In fact, I should have read it much sooner.

If anyone has heard the term “Luddite”, it was most likely used as a slur to refer to someone who doesn’t like technology and is vehemently against its adoption. This is a slander against the original Luddites. The book sets out to correct this mistaken myth about them and also to show how we can learn from them how to resist technology when it is bad for workers and for humans in general. The Luddites did not hate technology. They embraced it when it improved not only business but also their lives, both at work and at home. They began to resist when new machines became a danger to both. They took action to destroy those machines when their government would do nothing to protect them or their children against that negative present and future. Interestingly, they never set out to harm any individual, with a single exception.

The author definitely has a thesis that he sets out to prove. This is no neutral history. That said, his case is supremely persuasive. The background politics seem to rhyme with what is happening now, especially with the attitude of big business toward technology as an unmitigated good and the treatment of anyone who resists those technologies as ignorant fools fighting against the future. Ultimately, this is the story of power over others. It made me wonder why one small group of people is so unwilling to share the financial rewards of technology with the very workers who make that improvement possible? My entire life I have seen economic systems that represent capital (capitalism) and labor (socialism/communism) at war with one another. Is there no system that we can design that honors the value brought to economies by *both* capital *and* labor? This book creates the fertile ground on which we may one day find an answer to that question.

My rating: 5/5

Spill by Cory Doctorow

As I am sure I have said before, I am a big Cory Doctorow fan. I read his blog. I also have alerts that notify me when he publishes anything new. This book came up on one of those alerts, so I grabbed it right away and read it soon after.

The story takes place in the world of his previous series of novels that start with Little Brother. This one centers around a group of indigenous protesters trying to prevent an oil pipeline from being built through sacred land, potentially fouling the people’s water supply. This intersects with a cyber attack on a large company. Two main characters from the Little Brother universe working on these separate issue learn how they are related.

This novella is a quick and interesting read. Like all of Doctorow’s work, it includes simple descriptions of complex technical issues. Then he spins a story that shows you how that technology affects characters that could be anybody. This book is both entertaining and educational. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.5/5

The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut

I subscribe to Austin Kleon’s free Friday newsletter. In a recent edition, he mentioned that a “book about A.I., The MANIAC, is one of the best things I read this year.” With all the hype about artificial intelligence these days, this really got my attention.

This book is a semi-biographical novel about John von Neumann, widely considered to be one of the founding father’s of digital computing. Each chapter is in the first person from the point of view of someone who knew von Neumann well. It is an intriguing picture of an important historical figure. But what really grabbed me was the epilogue. There the author tells the true tale of how the computer program AlphaGo beat a top professional Go player. I play Go and followed that series of matches as it happened. Like most other Go players at the time, I didn’t think there was a chance that the computer would win. Spoiler alert, it did.

This novel is a great introduction to the human side of von Neumann and artificial intelligence. The excellent writing varies from voice to voice, showing Von Neumann to be a flawed and struggling human like the rest of us. When you finish this wonderful novel, I highly recommend reading the biography of the computer by Walter Isaacson called The Innovators.

My rating: 4.5/5

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford

I saw this book on a friend’s bookshelf when we recently visited Cincinnati to hang out with some old friends. He recommended it to me highly. The idea of a business book in the form of a novel reminded my of The Goal and Leadership and Self-Deception. Intrigued, I picked up a copy from my local library to read.

The story starts when Bill Palmer is called into the office of the CEO. On the way he learns that the CIO and VP of IT Operations have been summarily fired. When he reaches the CEO’s office, he is told of the bad spot the company is in and offered the job of VP of IT Ops. He wants to refuse, but the CEO sweet talks him into accepting before he even realizes it. The rest of the books is how he slowly builds a team and learns how to apply factory principles to IT operations.

This is a clever and engaging way of sharing some very important concepts. It felt close enough to real for it to be instructive. There were people who dug in and didn’t change, but most wanted to succeed more than be right. They worked and grew together. It was both educational and entertaining.

My rating: 4/5

Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State by Byron Tau

I am a subscriber to Reason magazine and have been since 2020. In the June issue is a review of this book. I am concerned about internet privacy so the review piqued my interest and I immediately requested a copy from my library.

This book outlines the history and growth of cooperation between technology companies and the government. The essential premise is that various levels of government are purchasing personal data of cell phones and the internet from tech companies. The level of privacy on this data would require a warrant if it was being requested directly from individuals. But because it is considered “digital exhaust” and therefore a product, governments can simply purchase it with no public oversight. This is deeply concerning to the author, a concern I share.

If you are wondering why we don’t have any federal laws that protect our digital privacy, this is why. Doing so would cut off their way around the Constitution, requiring them to have warrants to collect such data. Mass surveillance would become impossible because it would be illegal. The author has done extensive research into how this all came into being, who are the players, the whys and the hows. There is even an appendix written in plain English for things you can do to protect your own personal privacy while online. It is essential reading in our modern digital age.

My rating: 5/5

Going Zero by Anthony McCarten

I am of two minds with this book. The story is a fascinating and propulsive thriller, but the editing in the first half of the book is abysmal. I learned about this book from a blog post. The blogger read and recommended it. The premise is right up my ally, so I got it from by library and started reading.

The story is about a beta test run by a company called Fusion who have partnered with the CIA. Together they have developed a program that is designed to track down any individual no matter how much they try to hide. The book begins as the test starts. There are ten people selected from those who applied. They each have thirty days to “go zero” and avoid capture. If they succeed, they win three million dollars. While the book follows each of the ten, one of them in particular is the focus. She is a librarian who no one expects much from. But she is much more than she seems.

As I said, this a great thriller. The author is a Hollywood screenwriter, and the book has the feel of a blockbuster summer movie. Unfortunately, there were times where editing mistakes just yanked me right out of the story. Here is one example. A character is crossing Lake Ontario from Oswego, NY to Canada. The book explains that a helicopter out of Buffalo is crossing Lake Michigan on its way to intercept. But Lake Michigan is far west of Buffalo on the other side of Michigan, in the opposite direction. Then later the same helicopter is said to be out of Detroit.

Aside from these unfortunate interruptions, the book is fantastic. It explores ideas around privacy, relationships, doing the right thing, and the corruption of power. And all of this in a page turner with twists throughout it. Without the errors, this would be five stars from me.

My rating: 4/5