May We Follow Whatever Calls To Us

To see where the breadcrumbs might lead...

Given my current state of self-employment, I’ve allowed myself unlimited flexibility about how I spend my time each week. Essentially, I’ve given myself permission to follow the breadcrumbs of anything that interests me, as it relates to writing and publishing. Which is how I surprisingly found myself on a live zoom a few days ago with the the Duke & Duchess of Sussex, aka Prince Harry & Meghan Markle.

They were the suprise guests on a book launch zoom being hosted by Gayle King. Most of the zoom was focused on the authors - Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price, who just published their brand new book - The Amazing Generation. This is a follow up to the #1 book, The Anxious Generation, which has been a NYT bestseller for more than a year.

The Anxious Generation is a non-fiction deep dive into the teenage mental health crisis and examines the root cause - the rise of the phone-based childhood - that happened between 2010-2015. This book provides all the data that clearly shows how phones are causing the epidemic of anxiety, depression and self-harm among teenagers. Haidt is a prominent psychologist at NYU and he’s spearheading the current movement away from the phone-based childhood, back to a play-based childhood.

What I appreciate about this movement is that Haidt recognizes in order to change behavior, you have to focus on an entire school or community or state. Or in the case of Australia, the whole country, as they recently banned all social media for kids younger than 16. You can’t be the only 12 year old without a phone - this type of social change only works if all 12 year olds don’t have phones. Which is why his movement is generating so much support among parents. Because when parents work together, they can collaboratively improve the mental health for all their children. This takes a systems level approach to behavior change. And it’s smartly focused on advocating for public policy changes across communities.

The website for their social movement lists the “4 Norms” we need to reverse the phone-based childhood:

1. No smartphones before high school

2. No social media before 16

3. Phone-free schools, from bell to bell

4. More indepedence, free play and responsibility in the real world

This book was published in March, 2024, and over the past two years, significant changes have happened, largely because of this research. As of January, 2026, more than 30 states have enacted some sort of school day phone ban.

The Anxious Generation was the science book Haidt wrote for parents with all the necessary science and statistics. But he also strategically worked with Catherine Price to write this middle grade book for kids - calling it The Amazing Generation - and writing it as a graphic novel that focuses on possibilities for teens and tweens.

Their goal with this book is to empower young people to stand up for themselves by choosing a life not dominated by screens and social media. And they include a “Rebel’s Code” with 2 key messages:

How cool is this? The 1st book is for parents, the 2nd book is for kids, and inbetween he’s launched a national movement that’s generated support from celebrities like Harry & Meghan, among dozens of others.

Two things I found interesting that were discussed by Harry & Meghan on the zoom:

1. If you listen to the executives of all the tech companies today, they sound very much like the executives of the tobacco companies a few decades ago. In many ways, the tech companies are copying the playbook of the tobacco companies, because they know their product is toxic, but they don’t want everyone else to know that.

2. If you want to know what’s true, follow what the tech executives do, not what they say. Observe how they raise their own children in the real world. Oh look, the tech executives put their kids in schools without any educational technology, without phones, without social media. The people who have the most information about their products don’t let their own kids use their products. Need we say more?

This zoom session was intriguing because of this commentary, but also because of the wide network that is helping spread their message. They’ve even had the ironic help of influencers, who are hosting book parties in real life. And of course, they were strategic about writing this second book directly for teens and tweens.

And this is why I join random zooms, to learn whatever strategies I can from diverse authors. I also think we learn about ourselves by studying what we admire. Because when we understand what we admire, we can better understand our own ambitions.

It was the perceptive writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal who told us: “Pay attention to what you pay attention to.”

I’ve been paying attention to these authors because they’re doing more than selling books - they’re focused on changing behavior to improve mental health. They’re writing stories to launch a social movement and help people live better lives.

This is my ambition. Not just to write books, but to use books and stories to fuel a social movement. More important than selling books, I want to inspire hope and change.

I’ve been writing a novel in which the main character has sensory processing sensitivity. I’m doing this because I want people to better understand the neurodiverity of sensitivity, in order to increase awareness, education and support for all the highly sensitive people in the world.

Yes, this is crazy and ambitious. Good thing I believe in the power of books - and ideas - to change the world. I wonder how many people told Jonathan Haidt he was crazy for thinking he could get phones removed from schools. Yet here we are today.

You can call me crazy and I don’t mind. I hope we all have something we care about so much it makes us a little bit crazy.