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How Phones Are Making Parents the Anxious Generation
Smartphones are trust blockers for parents
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
90
Modern Luddites: On Being a Digital Minimalist Family in a Tech-Saturated World
Advice from the author of Childhood Unplugged
 • 
Katherine Johnson Martinko
41
Treating Childhood Anxiety with a Mega-Dose of Independence
What therapists can do to help restore the play-based childhood
 • 
Camilo Ortiz
51
Most Popular
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Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest
 • Jon Haidt
454
Social Media is a Major Cause of the Mental Illness Epidemic in Teen Girls. Here’s the Evidence.
 • Jon Haidt
309
Your Boyfriend Isn't Your Camera Man
 • Freya India
270
A Time We Never Knew
 • Freya India
151
Aren’t You Lonely?
 • Freya India
121
Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health
 • Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch
120

The International Mental Health Crisis

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The Global Loss of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
Happiness used to be U-shaped by age, with middle age the least happy. Not anymore. Young people are now the least happy.
 • 
David Blanchflower
 and 
Alex Bryson
50
The Girls Are Not Alright: Responses to Three Claims that the Youth Mental Health Crisis Is Exaggerated
Why changes in stigma and self-reporting procedures cannot explain the international decline of adolescent girls’ mental health.
 • 
Zach Rausch
65
The Youth Mental Health Crisis is International Part 4: Europe
Why girls from wealthy, secular, and individualistic nations were hit hardest.
 • 
Zach Rausch
, 
Thomas Potrebny
, and 
Jon Haidt
51
The Youth Mental Health Crisis is International, Unless You Rely on a Flawed International Dataset (The GBD)
Researchers need to stop using the Global Burden of Disease study when analyzing mental health trends
 • 
Zach Rausch
29
Suicide Rates Are up for Gen Z Across the Anglosphere, Especially for Girls
It’s not just anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
108

The Case Against The Phone-Based Childhood

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Big News: The Surgeon General Calls for a Warning Label on Social Media
Dr. Murthy is right. The evidence of widespread harm to adolescents is now strong.
 • 
Jon Haidt
 and 
Zach Rausch
90
The Youth Rebellion Is Growing
Seven Gen Z Leaders Working to Reduce the Harms Caused by the Phone-Based Childhood
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
34
On The Degrading Effects of Life Online
How social media makes us worse people
 • 
Jon Haidt
 and 
Freya India
93
​​​​​Keeping Our Kids Safe Online​​
Reflections from a bereaved mother
 • 
Kristin Bride
29
How To Reduce the Sexual Solicitation of Teens on Instagram
Suggestions from Meta whistleblower Arturo Béjar, which could have been implemented long ago
 • 
Arturo Béjar
60

The Case for Independence, Free Play, and Responsibility in the Real World

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How Phones Are Making Parents the Anxious Generation
Smartphones are trust blockers for parents
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
89
Treating Childhood Anxiety with a Mega-Dose of Independence
What therapists can do to help restore the play-based childhood
 • 
Camilo Ortiz
51
Neighborhoods that Nurture: Why The Play-Based Childhood Requires More Than Just Putting Down the Phone
It's easier to create “play-based childhoods” if we can simultaneously create vibrant “community-based childhoods” to support them.
 • 
Seth Kaplan
47
The Great Deterioration of Local Community Was A Major Driver of The Loss of The Play-Based Childhood
Kids growing up in close-knit communities where the social ties are thick are more protected from the harms of the phone-based childhood.
 • 
Zach Rausch
95
Why Kids Need Summer Camp
A 160-year-old solution to a modern mental health crisis
 • 
Steve Baskin
43

Voices of Gen Z

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Aren’t You Lonely?
Friendship has become another joyless thing to do on a screen
 • 
Freya India
121
A Gen Z Perspective on Why We Must Pass the Kids Online Safety Act
Social media holds immense promise to connect us. But to reap the benefits, we need to regulate it first.
 • 
Sam Hiner
50
CALLING ALL GEN Z: Phone Free Friday Summer Challenge!
This Summer, Let’s Reclaim Our Time (Starting June 14th)
 • 
Freya India
36
Your Boyfriend Isn't Your Camera Man
“Her need for me to catalogue her life is slowly draining my soul"
 • 
Freya India
270
The Youth Rebellion Is Growing
Seven Gen Z Leaders Working to Reduce the Harms Caused by the Phone-Based Childhood
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
34

What Parents Can Do Now

View all
How Phones Are Making Parents the Anxious Generation
Smartphones are trust blockers for parents
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
89
Modern Luddites: On Being a Digital Minimalist Family in a Tech-Saturated World
Advice from the author of Childhood Unplugged
 • 
Katherine Johnson Martinko
41
Treating Childhood Anxiety with a Mega-Dose of Independence
What therapists can do to help restore the play-based childhood
 • 
Camilo Ortiz
51
A Parents Guide to Understanding the Harms of the Phone-Based Childhood, Along With Ten Tips for Rolling It Back
Introducing Catherine Price, who writes books on fun and on phones, and offers ten tips for helping you and your children scroll less and live more
 • 
Catherine Price
23
The Revolution Has Begun in the UK
75,000 UK parents have come together to give their kids a smartphone-free childhood
 • 
daisy greenwell
104

What Schools and Educators Can Do Now

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How Schools Can Help End The Phone-Based Childhood
Five lessons for secular schools, from our experience in Jewish Day Schools
 • 
Caroline Bryk
34
Good News For Anxious Kids (And Parents)
A simple homework project can make your child more ready to face the world.
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
27
The Case for Phone-Free Schools
The research is clear: Smartphones undermine attention, learning, relationships, and belonging.
 • 
Jon Haidt
135

Responses to Skeptics

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How has mental health changed across demographic groups since 2010?
If social media is uniquely beneficial to adolescents in marginalized communities, we might expect to see their rates of anxiety and depression increase…
 • 
Jean M. Twenge
50
Big News: The Surgeon General Calls for a Warning Label on Social Media
Dr. Murthy is right. The evidence of widespread harm to adolescents is now strong.
 • 
Jon Haidt
 and 
Zach Rausch
90
Is The Gallup World Poll Reliable?
The way some researchers use the GWP can explain why they fail to find effects of digital technology on youth mental health
 • 
David Blanchflower
6
The Global Loss of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
Happiness used to be U-shaped by age, with middle age the least happy. Not anymore. Young people are now the least happy.
 • 
David Blanchflower
 and 
Alex Bryson
50
The Youth Rebellion Is Growing
Seven Gen Z Leaders Working to Reduce the Harms Caused by the Phone-Based Childhood
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
34
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