"Greatly expanding his award-winning New York Times series on the contemporary teen mental health crisis, Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter Matt Richtel delivers a groundbreaking investigation into adolescence, the pivotal life stage undergoing profound--and often confounding--transformation. The transition from childhood to adulthood is a natural, evolution-honed cycle that now faces radical change and challenge. The adolescent brain, sculpted for this transition over eons of evolution, confronts a modern world that creates so much social pressure as to regularly exceed the capacities of the evolving mind. The problem comes as screen-based information pelts the brain just as adolescence is undergoing a second key change: puberty is hitting earlier. The result is a neurological mismatch between an ultrapotent environment and a still-maturing brain, which can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. It is a crisis that is part of modern life but can only be truly grasped through the broad, grounded lens of the biology of adolescence itself. Through this lens, Richtel shows us how adolescents can understand themselves, and parents and educators can better help"-- Dust jacket flap.
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