Chapter 3 Discover Mode and the Need for Risky Play

But in a phone-based childhood, children are plunged into a whirlpool of adult content and experiences that arrive in no particular order. Identity, selfhood, emotions, and relationships will all be different if they develop online rather than in real life. What gets rewarded or punished, how deep friendships become, and above all what is

Humans have few true “critical periods” with hard time limits, but we do seem to have several “sensitive periods,” which are defined as periods in which it is very easy to learn something or acquire a skill, and outside of which it is more difficult.[31]

People can perceive excellence for themselves, but it’s more efficient to rely on the judgments of others. If most people say that Frank is the best archer in your community, and if you value archery, you’ll “look up” to Frank even if you’ve never seen him shoot an arrow.

Expectant Brains and Sensitive Periods

Social media platforms are therefore the most efficient conformity engines ever invented. They can shape an adolescent’s mental models of acceptable behavior in a matter of hours, whereas parents can struggle unsuccessfully for years to get their children to sit up straight or stop whining.

The value of conformity is obvious: Doing whatever most people are doing is the safest strategy across a wide range of environments. It’s particularly valuable when you are a newcomer to an existing society: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. So when a child starts at a new school, she is particularly likely to do whatever it is that most children

According to Rob Boyd and Pete Richerson, two of the leading scholars of gene-culture coevolution,[23] there are several “strategies” that won out over thousands of generations and became part of our evolved propensity for culture. The two that are most relevant for our discussion of social media are conformist bias and prestige bias.

Social Learning