Episode 245: Screens and Anxiety, plus: Adventures in Odyssey Celebrates 1000 Episodes

LISTEN TO THE PLUGGED IN SHOW, EPISODE 245

It’s hardly a secret these days that social scientists see a strong correlation between social media usage and adolescent anxiety. But if you’ve ever wondered why that correlation seems to exist, you’re going to want to listen to The Plugged In Show this week.

Certainly, screentime is one of our regular themes on show. But this week, we’re taking an even deeper dive—straight into some of the content in psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s buzzworthy new book Generation Anxious. He helps his readers understand how a young person’s connection to screens can potentially contribute to a deep experience of anxiety. The book is subtitled: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. And we’ll unpack that subject in our first segment.

In the second segment, we’ll shift gears into a lighter, even celebratory mode. Focus on the Family’s radio drama Adventures in Odyssey recently celebrated its 1,000^th episode. And since our very own Bob Hoose has been a writer, director and producer for the show, we thought it would be great to hear what he thinks about this series’ cross-generational appeal as its creators and fans celebrate this milestone event.  

As always, we’d love to hear from you and engage your thoughts on this week’s topics … or anything else related to pop culture and technology. You can connect with us in several different ways. The comments section below is one method. Or shoot us an email at [email protected].

And if you go to our podcast homepage, thepluggedinshow.com, you’ll find a black ribbon on the right-hand side of the page where you can leave us a voicemail with your thoughts—we might even feature your audio message on a future show. And, of course, Facebook and Instagram are options, too. We’re excited to report that we’ve begun hearing from some of you, and we look forward to adding more voices to the show as you leave us your thoughts here.

Thanks for joining us this week on The Plugged In Show.