With Brian Toal
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
This is a crucial book for anyone with teenagers. Why are they so anxious? Why are they experiencing more mental health issues than any previous generation? Why can’t they simply go out and play and socialise like we did back in the day? Because they’re all addicted to their phones. Haidt is clear that unsupervised outdoor play declined at the same time that the personal computer became more common and more inviting as a place for spending free time. ‘Safetyism’ cause parents to keep their children inside away from strangers and paedophiles, only to allow strangers and paedophiles access to them through their phones, as most teenagers are on social media well before they are meant to be, with very few checks to stops them doing so. Are you 13? Yes. Fine. Carry on.
“The explosion of smartphone-based apps such as Instagram in the exact years in which teens and preteens were moving from basic phones to smartphones marked a qualitative change in the nature of childhood.” This is depressing. All of the graphs in the book are fairly steady until 2014, when mental health decreased dramatically as mobile phone use increased rapidly. He continues, “When we gave children and adolescents smartphones in the early 2010s, we gave companies the ability to train them like rats during their most sensitive years of brain rewiring. Those companies developed addictive apps that sculpted some very deep pathways in our children’s brains.” The book also explores the differences between how boys and girls use social media. Girls prefer visual platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, constantly comparing themselves to other girls. Boys favour more text-based platforms such as Reddit, 4-chan and other websites which can quickly lead them down the manosphere rabbit hole.
So, it’s all doom and gloom. Or is it? In the final section of the book, Haidt explores solutions, most of which are easy to implement.
Phone-free schools are one way to free up pupils’ attention for each other and for their teachers. More and more schools, including my own, are becoming phone free. This frees up a large portion of the day for young people to interact and communicate with each other just like we did in the olden days before phones. Do you remember? Experimental studies show that social media use is a cause, not just a correlate, of anxiety and depression. When people are assigned to reduce or eliminate social media for three weeks or more, their mental health usually improves. It seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? When asked how their young person can improve in English, I always say ‘Read more.’ Less phone time; more reading time.
Flourishing by various poets
This lovely wee collection of poems was handed to me by a friend who is involved with Partickhill Bowling Club, as they are the organization behind the publishing of thisinteresting collection. The poems are all written by people who have moved to Glasgowfrom other countries – even England – and have made Glasgow their home. Theforeword by Mike Hough, the Poet in Residence at the bowling club, states that,Belonging to a community is good for your physical and mental health. How acceptingof ‘others’ that community is, is a mark of its maturity and empathy.’ Hear, hear.
But are we all as welcoming as we could be? Is there racism and xenophobia in Scotland?Surely not.The collection features entries from all over the world, most of whom arrived here asrefugees, but some economic migrants and some moving here for family or for love.The book is divided into three sections: optimism, contrast and Glasgow. Within thesesections there is a wide range of styles and attitudes and emotions expressed – somebeautifully, some with less skill. But let’s remember that English is a second languagefor these writers. Focus instead on the messages, the sentiments and the stories behindthe poems. The weather features a lot, of course. What a shock it must be to come froma place where the sunshine is more or less guaranteed. But if you believe these poets,the sunshine in Glasgow is not necessarily in the sky.
Greek Lessons by Han Kang
I’m not going to lie – the cover caught my eye. It’s a blue maze on a white background, like the Greek flag but mangled, a fitting design for the story inside. This is a tangled story of a teacher of ancient Greek in a university in Seoul who is gradually losing his sight. There are only a few students who come to his evening classes, one of whom is a mature student, silent, never writing, never asking questions – an enigma. As the story unfolds, and their backstories are gradually revealed, we watch with fascination as their two lumbering ships slowly drift towards each other and then collide.
Why is he losing his sight? Why can’t she speak? We are told part of the story, but not all. And that’s fine by me. “Each time she tried to begin a sentence, she could feel her aged heart. Her patched and repatched, dried-up, expressionless heart. The more keenly she felt it, the more fiercely she clasped the words.” They complement each other well, like yin and yang, and within both of them lies a mix of light and darkness. Han is not an author I was aware of, which is exactly why I picked up the book. Although it was written in 2011, it has only just been translated into English and there’s clearly been a bit of a marketing push by Penguin. I’m glad because it’s always refreshing to meet a new author. I shall now investigate her back catalogue.
Books available from all good bookshops, Waterstones, Byres Road, Hyndland Bookshop.
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