Understanding Adolescence
Hardcover
Psychology / Developmental / Adolescent
"This is essential reading for parents." — Dr. Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General
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.
One of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2025
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 a bombardment of screen-based information pelts the brain just as adolescence is undergoing a second key change: puberty is hitting earlier. The result is a neurological mis