How to Delay the Age At Which Kids Get Smartphones
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
... See moreEli George • Do the Kids Think They’re Alright?
The intrusion of smartphones and social media are not the only changes that have deformed childhood. There’s an important backstory, beginning as long ago as the 1980s, when we started systematically depriving children and adolescents of freedom, unsupervised play, responsibility, and opportunities for risk taking, all of which promote competence,
... See moreJonathan Haidt • The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood
What Kids Told Us About How to Get Them Off Their Phones
theatlantic.com
We were among the holdout parents. We know it’s not easy, but the evidence is clear: even if kids under 14 need phones for communication, they don’t need smartphones or social media. It’s time for parents to align on waiting so it isn’t just a few kids being left out.
For the data—and experiments that demonstrate... See more
instagram.comLet me be clear: there is no way to make social media safe for children by just making the content less toxic. It’s the phone-based childhood that is harming them, regardless of what they watch . Kids need to be freed from the grip of smartphones and social media, especially through early puberty. This is why two of the four norms I propose for
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