Mental health
Why today’s youth is so anxious and judgmental
In a well-evidenced diatribe, Jonathan Haidt accuses the creators of smartphone culture of rewiring childhood and changing human development on an unimaginable scale
‘Childhood has been rewired’: Professor Jonathan Haidt on how smartphones are damaging a generation
Something strange is happening with teenagers’ mental health. In Britain, the US, Australia and beyond, the same trend can be…
TikTok is giving our children Tourette’s
The pandemic has hit our children even harder than we thought
Canada’s assisted dying horror story
My favourite Martin Amis novel was his 1991 book Time’s Arrow. It is a pyrotechnically brilliant work in which all…
The midlife crisis spread: why are the affluent so depressed?
‘You are here’, as those signs in windswept carparks unhelpfully point out. Yup. No mistaking it, you will tend to…
The changing language of ‘mental health’
It is easy to laugh at young people asking for sympathy because ‘I’ve got mental health’. I think I heard…
How we fell for antidepressants
The French novelist, Michel Houellebecq, with his accustomed acuity about modern culture, titled his last novel but one Serotonin. By…
America has betrayed its young
Two articles last weekend made me feel sorry for American young people. We in the anti-woke brigade can be awfully…
Why legalising cannabis is safer than decriminalising it
The London mayor’s new policy on cannabis is a disaster
Try forest bathing – by day and night – to ward off depression
Anyone who spends time among trees senses how good that is for their physical and mental wellbeing, says Ursula Buchan
Simone Biles, Plutarch and an Olympic trial
The outstanding gymnast Simone Biles has pulled out of several Olympic events, saying: ‘I just don’t trust myself as much…
Should Simone Biles listen to Novak Djokovic?
I’ve always been a Spectator reader, so I’m delighted to be writing a diary about the Olympics from Tokyo. My…
Prince Harry could learn from Kate Middleton’s mental health work
I wonder if the royal family realise how lucky they are to have Kate? She may have been born a…
A matter of life or death: Should We Stay or Shall We Go, by Lionel Shriver, reviewed
Leave or remain? That’s the question hanging like a cartoon sledgehammer over Lionel Shriver’s 17th novel. Although she makes merry…
Why I’ve gone off country sports
‘Oh, I do so love to see all the lovely pheasants running around the place,’ said the lady walking the…
Remembering David Storey, giant of postwar English culture
Jasper Rees remembers David Storey, giant of postwar English culture and wry teller of tales, whose newly published memoir is perhaps his most remarkable work
We’ve become a nation of armchair psychiatrists
Let’s leave mental health diagnoses to the professionals
Letters: China has peaked
China has peaked Sir: Niall Ferguson makes some good points about the nature of Xi Jinping’s imperial aspirations but misses…
The problem with Britain’s mental health
Experts tell us that we are facing a mental health ‘time bomb’ in the UK, partly as a consequence of…
Demi Lovato makes Taylor Swift resemble Dostoevsky
Grade: Z If you wish to experience the full hideousness of Now, of our current age, condensed into one awful…
Our mental health is going up in smoke
As we creep back into the open, as the Covid wards empty and the mental health clinics fill up, how…
Why I’ve gone right off the police
‘Welcome to Victims First. Please leave your name and number and we will return your call. Beeeeeeeeeeeep!’ I had rung…
Surrey county council has abolished night time
An everlasting lightbulb brighter than the Dog Star was installed in the street lamp outside my house one morning as…
The horrifying toll of lockdown on the poor and mentally ill
I start the week with someone throwing faeces at me. I thought people were supposed to clap for doctors these…
Join me for weekly Scream If You’re Going Round The Bend
Never mind Clap for Carers, I’m trying to start a new weekly morale booster called Scream If You’re Going Round…
