In the final episode of Netflix’s Adolescence, the parents of an accused murderer (13-year-old Jamie) agonize over what ifs. What did they do or fail to do that would lead Jamie to such unexpected, horrific violence? What could they have done better?

In one scene, the parents basically prove the point of Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation—that parents today tend to overprotect their kids in the “real world” and under-protect them in the virtual world.

“He was in his room,” Jamie’s mom recalls of their son who spent long hours on his computer every night. “We thought he was safe.”

Famous last words.

In partnership with Crossway, TGC recently published Scrolling Ourselves to Death because, in a very real sense, what we do in our rooms on screens is killing us. Scrolling activity may not lead to physical death (though it does in Adolescence), but it often leaves us emotionally and spiritually dead.

The stakes of our scrolling habits are high. Ross Douthat captures it well in his recent—and remarkable—Times column on surviving the digital age. Adolescence touches on it too. Scrolling Ourselves to Death covers the dangerous dynamics from multiple angles. As Christians who believe in a good and sovereign God, we need not be alarmed. But we ought to be alert. We’ll need sober-minded wisdom, not scrolling naivete, in the days ahead.