Debate this: Can we turn back time by banning phones? End ‘phone-based childhood’ now say experts

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Debate this: Can we turn back time by banning phones? End ‘phone-based childhood’ now say experts In the last decade, something astonishing has happened. Young people’s reading abilities have come down across the board and across the world. In the same time period, students’ mental health plummeted. Loneliness, anxiety and depression are all at record highs. Some pin the blame on the little box in your hand. But can we do without them? Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety, according to world mental health data—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent. Don't give your kid a smartphone before high school, and don't let them use social media before age 16, New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues in a new book. Why it matters: The shift from "play-based" to "phone-based" childhoods is making our kids sick and miserable, Haidt argues. In "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness," Haidt says that staring at screens all the time is terrible for human development. A "phone-based" childhood causes "social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction," Haidt writes. A "play-based" childhood is essential for developing physical and social skills, like conflict resolution. "Children learn through play to connect, synchronize, and take turns," the book says. "They enjoy attunement and need enormous quantities of it." Social media, by contrast is mostly asynchronous and performative. It inhibits attunement and leaves heavy users starving for social connection. He and other social scientists, like Jean Twenge of San Diego State University, link the dramatic rise in adolescent mental health problems to smartphones and social media. Legislators have put pressure on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and others, but to little effect. By the numbers: The "teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012," Haidt asserts, presenting ample research to back it up. The numbers started rising noticeably in 2010 — three years after the introduction of the iPhone. Rates of depression and anxiety among U.S. adolescents were "fairly stable in the 2000s" but "rose by more than 50% in many studies from 2010 to 2019," Haidt writes in The Atlantic. The suicide rate rose 48% for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose a staggering 131%. The big picture: "The primary thing that we are trying to understand is why adolescent mental health fell off the cliff right around 2010," Zach Rausch, Haidt's research partner writes in his book. "The core thesis that we make in the book is that we started overprotecting kids long before 2010 — it really began in the 1980s." "We started pulling kids indoors, giving them much more supervision in highly structured activities and much less independence, free play and responsibility." By 2010, "social life for adolescents in particular moved almost entirely onto smartphones and social media platforms, and completely away from this in-person, real-world childhood and adolescence." Used in moderation, social media can help kids beat loneliness and enhance friendships, some experts say. Reality check: Putting the cellphones-and-social-media genie back in the bottle for kids is going to be a tough sell. Parents are often the ones demanding to be able to reach their kids during the school day. They're also the ones pleading with their kids to put the phones down — without success. Teens and parents are caught in this social trap, and the only way to get out of it is through collective action… Can we turn back time by banning phones? 80% said yes Imposing phones on our children was a choice; withholding them can be too. Even if it causes temporary difficulties it is better in the long run to teach them to live independent lives. 20% thought no Young people use phones for all kinds of reasons. A blanket ban simply cannot account for all the ways in which their lives would be affected. It is time to stop patronising.

In the last decade, something astonishing has happened. Young people’s reading abilities have come down across the board and across the world. In the same time period, students’ mental health plummeted. Loneliness, anxiety and depression are all at record highs.

Some pin the blame on the little box in your hand. But can we do without them?

Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety, according to world mental health data—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.

Don’t give your kid a smartphone before high school, and don’t let them use social media before age 16, New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues in a new book.

Why it matters: The shift from “play-based” to “phone-based” childhoods is making our kids sick and miserable, Haidt argues. In “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” Haidt says that staring at screens all the time is terrible for human development. A “phone-based” childhood causes “social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction,” Haidt writes.

A “play-based” childhood is essential for developing physical and social skills, like conflict resolution. “Children learn through play to connect, synchronize, and take turns,” the book says. “They enjoy attunement and need enormous quantities of it.”

Social media, by contrast is mostly asynchronous and performative. It inhibits attunement and leaves heavy users starving for social connection.

He and other social scientists, like Jean Twenge of San Diego State University, link the dramatic rise in adolescent mental health problems to smartphones and social media.

Legislators have put pressure on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and others, but to little effect.

By the numbers: The “teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012,” Haidt asserts, presenting ample research to back it up.

The numbers started rising noticeably in 2010 — three years after the introduction of the iPhone. Rates of depression and anxiety among U.S. adolescents were “fairly stable in the 2000s” but “rose by more than 50% in many studies from 2010 to 2019,” Haidt writes in The Atlantic.

The suicide rate rose 48% for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose a staggering 131%. The big picture: “The primary thing that we are trying to understand is why adolescent mental health fell off the cliff right around 2010,” Zach Rausch, Haidt’s research partner writes in his book.

“The core thesis that we make in the book is that we started overprotecting kids long before 2010 — it really began in the 1980s.” “We started pulling kids indoors, giving them much more supervision in highly structured activities and much less independence, free play and responsibility.”

By 2010, “social life for adolescents in particular moved almost entirely onto smartphones and social media platforms, and completely away from this in-person, real-world childhood and adolescence.”

Used in moderation, social media can help kids beat loneliness and enhance friendships, some experts say. Reality check: Putting the cellphones-and-social-media genie back in the bottle for kids is going to be a tough sell.

Parents are often the ones demanding to be able to reach their kids during the school day.

They’re also the ones pleading with their kids to put the phones down — without success.

Teens and parents are caught in this social trap, and the only way to get out of it is through collective action…

Can we turn back time by banning phones?

80% said yes

Imposing phones on our children was a choice; withholding them can be too. Even if it causes temporary difficulties it is better in the long run to teach them to live independent lives.

20% thought no

Young people use phones for all kinds of reasons. A blanket ban simply cannot account for all the ways in which their lives would be affected. It is time to stop patronising. 

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