This seems to complement Twenge's argument about children's lack of free play. Apart from school, when a child's primary means of connecting with others and developing social skills is through social media, where their frames of reference on how to treat themselves and others is presented in the most superficial and histrionic ways, how much of their growth is stunted thanks to these fast food substitutes?
If it's hard for a 32 year old like me to control my smartphone habits, I can't imagine how hard it is for young teenagers with developing brains who have lots more on their plates!
I'd really love to see the spatial and environmental element to all of this, especially regarding your stated goal to "reinvent the play-based childhood for the 21st century." Playing requires safe streets, play spaces, etc. And I wonder how the urban development patterns in the US since the mid-20th century have contributed to and/or exacerbated our epidemic of loneliness. Another way of putting this inquiry is: Do walkable neighborhoods mitigate the harms from smart phones and social media?
I had the good fortune and pleasure to briefly chat with Marshall McLuhan, when I was 15. It is to his lasting credit that he would willingly suffer a fool like me. One of his underlying beliefs is that a society shouldn't move on to any new technology until it has figured out what the current technology might be doing to it. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the impetus is to create and adopt new technology before we've even finished paying off the preceding things, let alone come to any insight about what it might be doing to us. It's an adolescent-dominated/driven society that demands new technology on the "hit parade", rising up the charts, constantly.
"We must stop overprotecting children in the real world and underprotecting them online." An urgent yet simple message that every parent needs to hear.
I've read several books and loads of articles on this subject your writing is the clearest and best.
y’know, I never really understood McLuhan’s “the Medium is the Message” until the Smart Phone. since I grew up with TV, but not with Smart Phones until I was almost 40 years old, I can clearly see the effect it had. I imagine this was what television did to the Silent Generation.
Not only schools, but people need to be educated on the harms that screens are to very young minds. Keeping kids away from screens, ALL screens, including TV is recommended for infants to age 2. This is next to impossible with our busy lives, but it is a message that all new parents need to hear. If you track the increase in autism, diagnoses spiked as color tv, cable tv, computers etc came into households. There are studies regarding time spent in front of screens (TV included) that suggest a strong correlation.
I realize this goal is probably impossible but I’d like to see more awareness of this. I hope you can get the message out. We are in a period where millennials and Gen z are in prime childbearing years, it would be great if the children could grow up to be neurologically healthy, even if it means the adults in their lives have to restrict all types of screen access until the children are older.
This is a big project you are embarking upon, I certainly wish you the best of luck and hope the movement is successful.
Let's Go! Thank you Professor Haidt. Burke said evil triumphs when good people do nothing. We ALL have a part to play in this. It is a matter of JUSTICE!!!!!
I was a free range kid in the late 50s and through the 60s, before phones, and I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything in the world. Good ideas, Mr. Haidt.
I’m currently at day 94 of going completely cold turkey on all social media and news. I tried in earnest for a year to cut down my usage; like only scrolling till the first advert, never clicking on the video “shorts”. My time online, which wasn’t much, took time away from me doing more interesting things for myself, even if it was something as simple as reading a new novel.
I started Substack and I thought it was fantastic as my attention span could get a workout, spending 30 minutes reading an essay without ad intrusions but still, my time was not mine.
It wasn’t until I went cold turkey late last year on all social media, all news, all YouTube, that I realized how anxious it had been making me feel. Like seriously, so fucking anxious about everything. In some ways it could be said I’m sticking my head in the sand, but no, I’m choosing now who and what I give my attention to; whether that be reading up on my next fermentation adventures, learning some new skills, spending time with my kids (and listening to them with full concentration, not with the thumb paused mid-scroll on the phone), online chatting with distant friends. Getting off social media can be isolating so I do make sure I keep connecting with online friends through instant messenger, asking random nonsensical questions just to reach out and connect.
I’m back here, to check in on a fermentation Substack about making tempeh (we’re using a bean that grows wild here and I wanted to contribute my results) and as soon as I open the app, I get distracted by THIS post. But heck this post is a great distraction. Thank you Jon for the critical work you are doing, I’ll be sharing this on my instagram stories in a month or so when I “post and run” (post a whole bunch of stories in one day, all about the farm, then close the app and not open it again for another couple of months). I have thought about returning one day to Substack only, removing all subscriptions that aren’t relevant to things I personally do, but at the moment the break from anxiety is literally life-changing. But you Jon, will remain on my list of subscriptions.
I’m 49 and I struggled to control my small amount of phone usage. How do we expect kids to?
Go to it, Jon! A "campaign to end the phone-based childhood and reinvent the play-based childhood for the 21st century" is music to my ears. It is the only sensible solution to the problems of childhood we are now seeing, as well as the large problems of declining literacy, which seem a disaster for a democracy threaten by both cynical and ignorant forces. I'm happy to help this campaign however I can, starting with buying your new book and recommending it to my friends. Thanks for your work! :)
This is so true. We have to get rid of the default to screens for kids. Three-year-olds should not be watching videos/games on their parents' phones as a primary mode of entertainment, and that is not easy to do. A bored three-year-old is going to beg for that phone, and it's easier to hand it over (and hilarious when the kid takes 8 pictures of her nostrils), but we are teaching our kids to default to screens for comfort, entertainment, and everything else.
I look forward to your book. I LOVED "The Coddling of the American Mind" and was vastly disappointed by your co-author's following book (The Cancelling..) which seemed to actually embrace many of the ideas it was supposedly criticizing. I'll be fascinated to see what more you have developed since Coddling.
I particularly agree with the idea here that simply being exposed to "influencers" stressing various "ideal" female qualities is taking us right back to the days of insistence that some things are girly and some boy-ly and never the twain shall meet. I wonder if some of the interest in teens in thinking of themselves as "non-binary" is a result of resistance to that message--"if I don't think of myself as female I don't have to live up to those standards." But as we all know from the tragedy of Nex Benedict, taking that route can actually lead to death by others, not just suicide.
I really wish your campaign well..... to dig childhood out from under the crushing rubble of the Age of the Smart Phone. As a natural pessimist I cannot be anything but sceptical about the feasibility of holding back the tide of technological-social change. But I wish it well because the alternative - 'content moderation' 'misinformation' moderation etc - that has been generating a lot of politico-chattering class noise recently is an arrogant, pig-ignorant idea. As McLuhan would have told if he was still around. Anyone who gets tagged as a moderation 'expert' or self-tags as one will either be a self-important buffoon or a grifter of some sort or perhaps just a plain simple idiot. Because whereas the upside of the digital age was an explosion of information... the downside was an even greater explosion of tendentious, opinionated ignorance. This is just a fact to be faced. There is no such thing as an 'expert' who can do anything about it. Compared to this Orwellian social engineering 'information' project, restricting children's access to social media - at least in the schoolroom - is a sane ambition.
I shared this last year on one of Haidt's posts, but I think it's worth sharing again, from Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism":
"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺...𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭-𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘈𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 - 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦...
𝘖𝘧𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘤𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘸-𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘴...𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥."
This seems to complement Twenge's argument about children's lack of free play. Apart from school, when a child's primary means of connecting with others and developing social skills is through social media, where their frames of reference on how to treat themselves and others is presented in the most superficial and histrionic ways, how much of their growth is stunted thanks to these fast food substitutes?
If it's hard for a 32 year old like me to control my smartphone habits, I can't imagine how hard it is for young teenagers with developing brains who have lots more on their plates!
I'd really love to see the spatial and environmental element to all of this, especially regarding your stated goal to "reinvent the play-based childhood for the 21st century." Playing requires safe streets, play spaces, etc. And I wonder how the urban development patterns in the US since the mid-20th century have contributed to and/or exacerbated our epidemic of loneliness. Another way of putting this inquiry is: Do walkable neighborhoods mitigate the harms from smart phones and social media?
This is exactly the angle I hoped you would take. We need a Marshall McLuhan for the Social Media age. I nominate you, Jon.
I had the good fortune and pleasure to briefly chat with Marshall McLuhan, when I was 15. It is to his lasting credit that he would willingly suffer a fool like me. One of his underlying beliefs is that a society shouldn't move on to any new technology until it has figured out what the current technology might be doing to it. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the impetus is to create and adopt new technology before we've even finished paying off the preceding things, let alone come to any insight about what it might be doing to us. It's an adolescent-dominated/driven society that demands new technology on the "hit parade", rising up the charts, constantly.
"We must stop overprotecting children in the real world and underprotecting them online." An urgent yet simple message that every parent needs to hear.
I've read several books and loads of articles on this subject your writing is the clearest and best.
y’know, I never really understood McLuhan’s “the Medium is the Message” until the Smart Phone. since I grew up with TV, but not with Smart Phones until I was almost 40 years old, I can clearly see the effect it had. I imagine this was what television did to the Silent Generation.
It's not just kids harmed by social media - you can see lots of the warning signs in adults too.
Not only schools, but people need to be educated on the harms that screens are to very young minds. Keeping kids away from screens, ALL screens, including TV is recommended for infants to age 2. This is next to impossible with our busy lives, but it is a message that all new parents need to hear. If you track the increase in autism, diagnoses spiked as color tv, cable tv, computers etc came into households. There are studies regarding time spent in front of screens (TV included) that suggest a strong correlation.
I realize this goal is probably impossible but I’d like to see more awareness of this. I hope you can get the message out. We are in a period where millennials and Gen z are in prime childbearing years, it would be great if the children could grow up to be neurologically healthy, even if it means the adults in their lives have to restrict all types of screen access until the children are older.
This is a big project you are embarking upon, I certainly wish you the best of luck and hope the movement is successful.
Let's Go! Thank you Professor Haidt. Burke said evil triumphs when good people do nothing. We ALL have a part to play in this. It is a matter of JUSTICE!!!!!
I was a free range kid in the late 50s and through the 60s, before phones, and I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything in the world. Good ideas, Mr. Haidt.
I’m currently at day 94 of going completely cold turkey on all social media and news. I tried in earnest for a year to cut down my usage; like only scrolling till the first advert, never clicking on the video “shorts”. My time online, which wasn’t much, took time away from me doing more interesting things for myself, even if it was something as simple as reading a new novel.
I started Substack and I thought it was fantastic as my attention span could get a workout, spending 30 minutes reading an essay without ad intrusions but still, my time was not mine.
It wasn’t until I went cold turkey late last year on all social media, all news, all YouTube, that I realized how anxious it had been making me feel. Like seriously, so fucking anxious about everything. In some ways it could be said I’m sticking my head in the sand, but no, I’m choosing now who and what I give my attention to; whether that be reading up on my next fermentation adventures, learning some new skills, spending time with my kids (and listening to them with full concentration, not with the thumb paused mid-scroll on the phone), online chatting with distant friends. Getting off social media can be isolating so I do make sure I keep connecting with online friends through instant messenger, asking random nonsensical questions just to reach out and connect.
I’m back here, to check in on a fermentation Substack about making tempeh (we’re using a bean that grows wild here and I wanted to contribute my results) and as soon as I open the app, I get distracted by THIS post. But heck this post is a great distraction. Thank you Jon for the critical work you are doing, I’ll be sharing this on my instagram stories in a month or so when I “post and run” (post a whole bunch of stories in one day, all about the farm, then close the app and not open it again for another couple of months). I have thought about returning one day to Substack only, removing all subscriptions that aren’t relevant to things I personally do, but at the moment the break from anxiety is literally life-changing. But you Jon, will remain on my list of subscriptions.
I’m 49 and I struggled to control my small amount of phone usage. How do we expect kids to?
Go to it, Jon! A "campaign to end the phone-based childhood and reinvent the play-based childhood for the 21st century" is music to my ears. It is the only sensible solution to the problems of childhood we are now seeing, as well as the large problems of declining literacy, which seem a disaster for a democracy threaten by both cynical and ignorant forces. I'm happy to help this campaign however I can, starting with buying your new book and recommending it to my friends. Thanks for your work! :)
This is so true. We have to get rid of the default to screens for kids. Three-year-olds should not be watching videos/games on their parents' phones as a primary mode of entertainment, and that is not easy to do. A bored three-year-old is going to beg for that phone, and it's easier to hand it over (and hilarious when the kid takes 8 pictures of her nostrils), but we are teaching our kids to default to screens for comfort, entertainment, and everything else.
Go, Jon, go!!
I look forward to your book. I LOVED "The Coddling of the American Mind" and was vastly disappointed by your co-author's following book (The Cancelling..) which seemed to actually embrace many of the ideas it was supposedly criticizing. I'll be fascinated to see what more you have developed since Coddling.
I particularly agree with the idea here that simply being exposed to "influencers" stressing various "ideal" female qualities is taking us right back to the days of insistence that some things are girly and some boy-ly and never the twain shall meet. I wonder if some of the interest in teens in thinking of themselves as "non-binary" is a result of resistance to that message--"if I don't think of myself as female I don't have to live up to those standards." But as we all know from the tragedy of Nex Benedict, taking that route can actually lead to death by others, not just suicide.
I really wish your campaign well..... to dig childhood out from under the crushing rubble of the Age of the Smart Phone. As a natural pessimist I cannot be anything but sceptical about the feasibility of holding back the tide of technological-social change. But I wish it well because the alternative - 'content moderation' 'misinformation' moderation etc - that has been generating a lot of politico-chattering class noise recently is an arrogant, pig-ignorant idea. As McLuhan would have told if he was still around. Anyone who gets tagged as a moderation 'expert' or self-tags as one will either be a self-important buffoon or a grifter of some sort or perhaps just a plain simple idiot. Because whereas the upside of the digital age was an explosion of information... the downside was an even greater explosion of tendentious, opinionated ignorance. This is just a fact to be faced. There is no such thing as an 'expert' who can do anything about it. Compared to this Orwellian social engineering 'information' project, restricting children's access to social media - at least in the schoolroom - is a sane ambition.