This summer, I was excited to read a book that had been an instant NYT bestseller, by an author I respect, Jonathan Haidt. The book? The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. I knew it was about kids and smart phones, and I was curious if I could be swayed.
After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I proudly wrote about how I don’t limit my kids screentime.
Well, I have a confession to make.
I’m a big fan of the saying “know better, do better.” It’s a phrase that has guided me, guilt-free, away from whatever choices I’ve made that I no longer feel are the right choices. I tend to need this often as a parent, as so many of our decisions are split second and sometimes reviewing them is crucial to helping our children learn, grow, and thrive.
While I was waiting for my library hold to be ready, the Surgeon General called for health warnings for social media for young users. The time to review my stance on this subject was now.
I’ll start by saying this: every family has different needs, and I can think of a million reasons why parents choose to give their children and young teens smart phones. You are not a bad parent if you have already done it!
But I hope you’ll read on as I share info from this book that might open your eyes to some of the challenges this small but impactful device has brought into children’s lives. It certainly opened mine.
Smart phones were introduced in 2007, and I got my first one as an adult (it was a Blackberry with a keyboard, lol).
Haidt makes the point: the generations before smart phones were introduced had a normal, human, play-based childhood. Sure, we may have had flip phones as teenagers but our life was lived in person, hanging out, doing kid stuff or teen stuff, learning how to navigate in-person social situations.
These kinds of interactions have plummeted in the last decade, as we have moved from a “play-based” childhood to a “screen-based” childhood.
Can you imagine a puberty where instead of interacting and hanging out with your friends, flirting and being awkward, a majority of your interactions with other humans are swiping, tapping, and liking other people’s posts? Waiting for validation on whatever you’ve shared? According to Haidt, half of kids say they are on the internet “all the time”.
Studies show mental health and self-esteem (especially in girls) in the Western world began plummeting between 2010 and 2015. The amount of time kids spend hanging out with each other after school? That’s also dropped by more than half. And across the board, anxiety and psychological problems are self-reported at much higher numbers. Most alarming? Suicide or self harm levels are higher than they’ve ever been among teens. (Links to all of these statistics and studies with actual numbers are available here.)
What changed? The Anxious Generation argues that it’s the introduction of smart phones, and the shift to a phone-based childhood.
There is more to the story, according to Haidt. This decline in play-based childhood actually began with a lot of the fear that our parents had in the 1980s: stranger danger, “It’s 10 pm, do you know where your children are?” and sensationalized news stories started changing childhood from one of relative freedom, to one of more parental fear and restrictions.
There was some push-back to this “fear based” parenting several years ago when the “free range” parenting trend became a hot topic. To refresh your memory, “free range” parents allow their children freedom: to walk home from places alone, perhaps run an errand alone, becoming independent, and gaining confidence- all things that were a normal part of growing up in past generations. There was public and media backlash to this parenting style when it made headlines in 2015 with the arrest of a Maryland mother who allowed her children to walk home from a park alone .
Haidt advocates we need to do more of this, though- allow our children their independence. Release our own fears of keeping them protected in the “real world” and do a better job of protecting them from the “digital world” which can be far more dangerous to their mental well-being.
Things like human interaction, sleep, and time spent with loved ones are on the decline for teenagers these days. Their attention is constantly split between whatever is happening in real life (including in school during class!) and what is happening on their phone.
I believe implementing phone bans in school is a huge first step in scaling back some of the damage that the phone-based childhood is having on our children. According to a Pew Research study done in 2023, 72% of high school teachers view cell phones as a “major problem” in their classrooms.
It’s encouraging how quickly the tides seem to be turning on the topic of kids and smart phones with bans in some of the largest school districts in the nation.
My children’s own school district has implemented a cell phone ban this year, though at my children’s ages, it’s hard to say how effective it’s been. Even in elementary school, my children say that most of their classmates have a phone. Some districts are opting for the use of magnetic pouches while on campus, or using phone cubbies, even over-the-door shoe storage as cell phone pockets during class- I like all of these ideas to manage kids and smart phones at school.
Jonathan Haidt suggests how we can create a “new normal” for kids and smart phones, and that requires us parents banding together to recreate a childhood for our kids based on these “four norms”: no smart phones until 14, no social media until 16, no phones in schools (like, at all) and more freedom and responsibility for our children in the real world.
For my family, my children still have relatively unlimited use of their iPads. They play Roblox, watch Disney+ or Netflix, or play chess with their friends. They no longer have access to YouTube on their tablets (I’ve decided falling ‘down the rabbit hole’ isn’t where I want my kids going every day, so they are allowed to access specific creators or videos they want to see from our TV, within reason). I particularly fear for my second grade daughter, whose inadvertent exposure to any diet or fitness accounts scares me tremendously. I also fear my fifth grade son would fall into the “dude” content creator world of misogyny or violence. No thanks!
They play outside and (gasp) even get bored. I let my older child play with neighbors in the park in our neighborhood unsupervised, giving him a watch and a time he needs to check in with me. It’s changed him for the better to know we trust him to be safe and responsible.
And as they grow and gain even more independence, I’ll allow them to start with a flip phone or smartwatch so they can call me or text me for safety reasons.
And when the day comes for them to get a smart phone, probably when they start high school, I will not allow them to be on social media. I don’t see any evidence that any good has come from that.
I’ve joined the pledge to Wait Until 8th which “empowers parents to say yes to waiting for the smartphone” along with one in ten other families. Together, we can change the phone-based childhood back to a play-based childhood.
Childhood is so fleeting. I want to let them be little for as long as possible.
It may feel like the toothpaste is already out of the tube for your kids and smart phones if you’ve given your child a phone, or they are already on social media. But I want to let you know, you are doing the best you can with the information you had at the time. And it’s ok to evolve on this issue. (Here are some resources to help if you’re interested.)
It’s also OK if you have decided that your child having a smart phone is the right thing for your family. Just know if you are having second thoughts, you are not alone. I hope you feel empowered to do whatever is best for your child and their mental health.
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