How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence

(Hardback)

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Building off his award-winning New York Times series on the contemporary teen mental-health crisis, the Pulitzer Prizewinningsciencereporter delivers a groundbreaking investigation into adolescence, the pivotal life stage undergoing profoundand often confoundingtransformation.

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 mismatch between an ultra-potent environment and a still-maturing brain that can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. It is a crisis that is part of modern life but can only be truly grasped through a broad, grounded lens of the biology of adolescence itself. Through this lens, Richtel shows us how adolescents can understand themselves, and parents and educators can better help.

For decades, this transition to adulthood has been defined by hormonal shifts that trigger the onset of puberty. But Richtel takes us where science now understands so much of the action is: the brain. A growing body of research that looks for the first time into budding adult neurobiology explains with untold clarity the emergence of the social brain, a craving for peer connection, and how the behaviors that follow pave the way for economic and social survival. This period necessarily involves testingas the adolescent brain is programmed from birth to take risks and explore themselves and their environmentso that they may be able to thrive as they leave the insulated care of childhood.

Richtel, diving deeply into new research and gripping personal stories, offers accessible, scientifically grounded answers to the most pressing questions about generational change. What explains adolescent behaviors, risk-taking, reward-seeking, and the ongoing mental health crisis How does adolescence shape the future of the species What is the nature of adolescence itself

Reviews

Argues that creativity is as natural as reproduction itself while exploring its evolutionary origins, examining its science and providing insight from notable creative types. New York Times Book Review on Inspired Engaging and lively. Crisp, conversational and at times darned funny. What distinguishes Inspired is its expansive range and conversational tone, as well as Richtels ability to synthesize a lot of complex research, simplifying without oversimplifying. Washington Post An expert examination of the immune system and recent impressive advances in treating immune diseases. Richtel downplays the claims of enthusiasts who urge us to attain the strongest possible immune system. Immunity resembles less a comic-book superhero than a trigger-happy police force, equally capable of smiting villains and wreaking havoc on innocent bystanders. Richtel illuminates a complex subject so well that even physicians will learn. Kirkus, starred review, on An Elegant Defense Richtel brilliantly blurs the lines between biology primer, medical historical text and the traditional first-person patient story. ... Richtel harnesses his reporters eye for the human condition. Washington Post on An Elegant Defense Riveting. ... Interweaves research into attention and information overload with the wrenching story of Utah teenager Reggie Shaws tragic 2006 car crash, one of the first texting-and-driving cases in the U.S. ... Exhaustively researched. ... Richtel brings a novelists knack for unspooling narrative conflict to bear on Shaws real-life drama. ... Shaw is an emotionally relatable proxy for us all, most notably for an entire generation that has grown up, and acquired drivers licenses, with their thumbs and attentional priorities affixed to their smartphones. ... Compelling. San Francisco Chronicle (A Best Book of the Year) on A Deadly Wandering A hard-to-put-down account of the bodys first line of defense. Publishers Weekly A thorough, richly entertaining and just-wonky-enough beginners class in immunology through the case studies of four patients. Wall Street Journal Keen and elegantly raw. ... Not just a morality tale but a probe sent into the world of technology. ... Richtel draws all the characters with a fine brush, a delicacy that treats misery both respectfully and front-on. Christian Science Monitor "The Pulitzer-winning author unpacks the myths and mysteries of the creative process, and shows the research that proves why it's not just the 'Big C' geniuses who can tap into it." Salon Inspiredmakes the convincing case that true creativity spans industries, movements, and endeavors. Scientific American

Author Bio

Matt Richtel has been a reporter at the New York Times since 2000. He won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series that exposed the pervasive risks of distracted driving and its root causes, prompting widespread reform. He is the author of A Deadly Wandering, which the New York Times Book Review declared, "deserves a spot next to Fast Food Nation and To Kill a Mockingbird in America's high school curriculum"; it was named a "best book of the year" by the San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews, and Winnipeg Free Press. He has appeared on NPR's Fresh Air, PBS Newshour, and other major media outlets. He lives in San Francisco, California.