Note that these four reforms, taken together, cost almost nothing, have strong bipartisan support, and can be implemented all right now, this year, if we agree to act collectively. And what if it turns out that I am wrong? What if, in reality, the multinational collapse of adolescent mental health in the early 2010s was not caused by the arrival of phone- based childhood; it was just a big coincidence. Will kids be damaged by these four norms? I don't think so. What irreversible harm will be done to children who spend more time listening to their teachers during class, more time playing and exploring together outdoors, and less time sitting alone hunched over a device? We are now 12 years into a public health emergency that began around 2012. In The Anxious Generation, I offer a detailed explanation of what caused it (drawing on many academic fields) and a detailed path by which we can reverse it. I know of no plausible alternative explanation, nor have I found anyone offering a realistic alternative pathway out. We certainly need skeptics to challenge alarm-ringers, who sometimes do ring false alarms. God bless the skeptics. But at a certain point, we need to take action based on the most plausible theory, even if we can't be 100% certain that we have the correct causal theory. I think that point is now.
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