India, March 22 -- The Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business, Jonathan Haidt's research focuses on moral and political psychology. His latest book, The Anxious Generation, reveals that, between 2010 and 2015, as children and teens increasingly began using smartphones with social media apps, their mental health worsened. His book offers practical steps that parents, schools and teachers can take to protect the mental health of children.

What prompted your research on the rewiring of childhood that has led to an epidemic of mental illnesses in children and adolescents?

My research, for a long time now, has been on how technologies are changing societies and how it is interfering wi...