How to Delay the Age At Which Kids Get Smartphones
kev and added
Let 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 sol
... See moreJon Haidt • Marshall McLuhan on Why Content Moderation Is a Red Herring
simon added
No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14). No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a
... See moreJonathan Haidt • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Quote from After Babel:
... See more“Another mistake is believing that our children are more advanced than others in terms of the strength of their character; unfortunately, our values are not passed through our genes. Despite our efforts to train our teens to “do the right thing” on their screens, teens are not gifted with the willpower needed for social medi
Michael Dean added
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?
sari and added
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
Most parents don’t want their children to have a phone-based childhood, but somehow the world has reconfigured itself so that any parent who resists is condemning their children to social isolation.
Jonathan Haidt • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Once a few students get smartphones and social media accounts, the other students put pressure on their parents, putting them into a trap as well. It’s painful for parents to hear their children say, “Everyone else has a smartphone. If you don’t get me one, I’ll be excluded from everything.” (Of course, “everyone” may just mean “some other kids.”)
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