“We are over-protecting children in the real world while under-protecting them online” says Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, who maintains that the environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development. Haidt traces the current mental health crisis to the mid-2010s when smartphones and social media began to reshape the social landscape for adolescents. CF explores these troubling developments and discusses healthier alternatives.

Speakers

Shane Voss

Shane Voss  is Executive Director of Mountain Middle School in Durango, CO. which is featured as a model school in “Anxious Generation” – the NYT bestseller by Jonathan Haidt. Voss was named Colorado’s Charter School Leader of the Year in 2024. He earned his B.A. from Fort Lewis College in Durango, CL. and his M.A. from Northwestern University, Evanston IL.

Catherine Price

Catherine Price is a health and science journalist, founder of Screen/Life Balance and the author of How to Break Up with Your Phone and The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again. Her work has been featured in a variety of publications including the NYT, Popular Science, The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and the BBC, among others. Her goal is to help people scroll less and live more.

Camilo Ortiz

Camilo Ortiz Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology at Long Island University-Post, he also maintains a private practice.  He is the developer of Independence Therapy, a revolutionary new approach to treating child anxiety through “mega-doses” of child independence. Ortiz received a B.S. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from  U. Mass. Amherst.

Lenore Skenazy

Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence which she helped co-found. Her 2008 newspaper column, “Why I Let my 9 year-old ride the subway alone” landed her in the limelight and lead to her writing Free-Range Kids, a book that started a movement,“Our kids are safer, smarter, and stronger than our culture gives them credit for.”