Part 2 gives the backstory. The mental health crisis of the 2010s has its roots in the rising parental fearfulness and overprotection of the 1990s. I show how smartphones, along with overprotection, acted like “experience blockers,” which made it difficult for children and adolescents to get the embodied social experiences they needed most, from risky play and cultural apprenticeships to rites of passage and romantic attachments.
