The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood

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

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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

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Schools compete with cellphones

Outdoor activities, clubs aim to help students reengage

Lackawanna police Officer Abdul Albaneh, who works with schools, demonstrates how to unlock a cellphone pouch that will prevent students from using their cellphones during the school day Aug. 19 in Lackawanna, New York. Carolyn Thompson/Ap

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But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can give future generations a real-world childhood. We can prioritize play. We can delay entry to social media platforms until at least 16. We can encourage young people to just hang out with each other, without supervision and without smartphones. We can take elements of childhood from previous eras and re-in... See more