Do the Kids Think They’re Alright?

In sum, our efforts to find and elicit the views of Gen Z largely confirm our initial concerns while also suggesting additional avenues for investigation. The kids are not alright, and the combination of smartphones and social media is a major reason why

We think social media has changed childhood and adolescence for the worse, so much so that it constitutes a “great rewiring of childhood.” Beginning in the 1990s, a childhood based heavily on outdoor play began to fade away and was replaced by a phone-based childhood in the early 2010s, when teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones.

Can we

The aggregated scores revealed that young users had, on net, negative opinions of the effects that highly social apps like Instagram and Snapchat were having on their mental well-being. Both Instagram and Snapchat were said, by teens, to worsen anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep, body image, bullying, and FoMO. Interestingly, though, Facebook a