Kids emulate adults, not just other kids. If in-person culture is mostly dead in the US, they will emulate the adults being online. We need to reboot our culture, so adults have reasons to be together in person, not just in churches and workplaces. Discussion/reading groups, folk dances, music jams, festivals, presentations by people about topics they are passionate about, and other civic clubs for example. Maybe even good old fashioned economic interdependence, where people make and do stuff for each other around them, instead of getting it and giving it to abstract and far away institutions. If the only glue we have is our children and believing absurd dogmas (which is what costly signaling requires), then online zombie culture will always win.
Thank you so much for your continued effort to inform parents. It's often the kids that get the blame, but it's not their fault they're being bubble wrapped. Risky Play = Resiliency.
Yes, our generation (X) got much more free play time with friends and in the neighborhoods where we grew up. Unfortunately, those of us who’d LIKE to give our kids more ‘free roam’ time and opp’ties are not given cultural or legal permission to do so; it is widespread frowned upon, stigmatized, culturally/ socially prohibited…
Totally agree. It's kind of like how they pointed out how it's hard to go send your kid out to play when no other kids are out there. Not only are they keeping their kids inside but they are also judging you.
Pretty depressing. But then, I'm 72, grew up in a small Ohio town called Westerville (it's not so small now!), and had the run of the place, in town and the surrounding farms, a new housing development, and even a swamp. I walked to school every year but jr. high. I recommend a Japanese show you can still see on Netflix called, "Old Enough," where 3 & 4 year olds are sent alone fairly far from home to run an errand for their parents. It shows how comfortable kids even that age can be. They solve their own problems, navigate strange places with appropriate directions, and accomplish tasks that would challenge a high school kid in our time and place. Whatever happened to the pioneer spirit, anyway? We infantalize our young to their long-lasting detriment.
Don't forget to mention that we need better infrastructure. We need to design family centered, walkable neighborhoods that kids are safe to play in and get around independently.
Kids don't go outside because there's no where to go and no way to get there. We are so car dependent and that is what I believe mostly contributes to the loneliness epidemic and isolation among non-driving kids and teens.
I am so so passionate about this and my goal this semester is to publish a big research paper on my Substack, and later use it for lobbying in my North-Atlanta suburban county. It's going to be called something like "how car centric design contributes to the loneliness epidemic among youth and general health crisis in America"
I'm going to have a section about the loneliness epidemic, another one about the health crisis, and another about child development in suburban America compared to walkable European countries.
Speaking of walkable European countries, I just went to Italy for 22 days, Corsica for 2 days, and the car free town of Zermatt, Switzerland, for 2 days. On this trip I interviewed at least 25 different kids from different places in Italy, and I've already published the Zermatt interviews.
I would really appreciate if you took a look at that. It's on my Substack and my YouTube channel. I also posted a video on my Substack of myself kicking around a soccer ball with some boys on an open street in Italy.
I plan to interview more kids in my suburban hometown so people can watch and compare the interviews. The interviews from Zermatt might be helpful to your research and persuasive writing. There's an emphasis on independence there, and at one point a girl in the interview told me "you will see like no kids walking around with their parents".
I don’t know about better infrastructure but I’ve thought about this a lot in connection with “what we used to do”. The neighborhoods many of us grew up in had streets that weren’t very wide which paradoxically meant less speeding (I think this is well-established). But spacious enough for games. But also, the developers hadn’t grown so greedy as to lot size. Our houses were often on quarter acre lots. But even in the more modest neighborhood where I first lived, in the 70s, the ranch style houses on smaller lots, compelled a certain lot width.
It’s true when we were older we didn’t play in the back yards nearly as much as the front. Unless someone had a trampoline or a pool.
But the key thing was the front yards provided lots of room to play, and people parked their cars in their garages, or up their driveways toward what was generally a rear garage. If a car was out front, in the street, it was a guest.
Nowadays I see that the neighborhoods have such narrow lots, the houses nearly touching, and built sort of shotgun style on the lot, that there is very little space between driveways.
And in any case, half the front elevation of the house is garage - there are no more rear, detached garages. The “driveways” are short stubs that also break up the available play area. Often people have stuffed their garage full of possessions so have crammed two or three cars onto the tiny driveway. This means that even if a sidewalk was provided, it’s usually blocked by a car.
And people have more vehicles than they used to. So many.
These often line the streets on both sides.
I totally agree that this seems not optimal for free play. The yards are too small for play, the streets are full of parked cars; if you cycled you’d have no way to cleave to the side of the road. Maybe there’s a sidewalk, if you’re lucky, on one side of the street, but like I said it too is blocked at intervals by all these trucks and SUVs.
If there’s a park nearby, then that works I guess but only if kids are allowed to get there by themselves. And if it’s not full of nuisance behavior by “adults”.
Yeah, nuisance behavior by "adults" is what drove our neighborhood is what drove our neighborhood to create a neighborhood association. We were creating activities so that we could take up space in the parks and make it more inviting to families. And also serve as pushback to those trying to take over the parks for themselves.
You perfectly described my neighborhood. There's kids, but we have no place to play or meet up because we all have private tiny patios, and parents don't want to let their kids into private homes, which makes sense. What we need to do is have more public and shared third places for people to meet and kids to play. However, developers are greedy and they want to maximize the amount of houses in a piece of land instead of allotting space to improve quality of life.
I don't think the solution is to go back to building houses with big backyards because
- it increases sprawl and decreases density (not good)
- fewer and fewer people can afford it, land is simply running out, the population is growing, and unlike before, fewer people are going to get lots of land or even be property owners to begin with. Home ownership is going down, and rental is going up. More and more people are going into small houses (like my family) and it's simply not worth it (or fair) to make them pay for a useless patio that is divided by a fence and HOA regulated.
We don't use our patio. We might as well be living in a townhome. And I'd rather that, because many new (upscale) townhome developments include some sort of shared lawn or pocket parks in the master plan.
Single Family Home:
- small
- separate from the next house by like 15 feet
- tiny, fenced, useless patio that keeps people separated and kids isolated
Townhome
- small
- attached to the next house
- shared green space where kids can walk out the door and immediately see who's ready to play
I thought of that latter when I saw plans in my former city to tear down an old public housing project. It had a certain deco charm, as modest buildings of the 30s and 40s often do; and so on those grounds the demolition had been resisted for years. But I guess the people who resisted have died, and people now are looking forward to the demolition because they said they wanted their public housing to look like “everyone else’s (newer) housing“ (blend in). And they understandably were looking forward to better kitchens.
I couldn’t help but notice, though that the new place will be a monolithic midrise building. I can’t remember maybe 5 to 10 stories. Whereas The old project was small, single or at most two-story buildings dotted amid open space and trees.
I just thought, it honestly seems kind of convenient to be able to open your door and let your kid out to play there and you can see him out the window, or sit on the steps, go in and out easily …
The new building will offer nothing of that sort at all.
But I never want what other people want, it seems.
yeah... they don't really know any better. That's just what happens in a consumeristic and materialistic society. People end up wanting what is newer and shinier, even if it's not better.
We have some awesome architecture like that in Atlanta (which just keeps rising in value), but new housing obviously outnumbers it.
Yes, they’ve recently knocked down the most charming deco student housing at the university. It would break your heart if you saw the picture. Honestly, it looked like something out of dwell magazine, it was so cool and integrated with the outdoors, perfectly scaled …
And the Deco period wasn’t really that long, having been interrupted.
They also knocked down the 30s vintage school of social work that was a perfectly serviceable and attractive building. It’s hard for me to imagine what sort of in-person classroom requirements that could possibly evolved in 2025, necessitated this demolition. It was opposed by preservationists, pretty thoroughly, even found a race angle - but the state doesn’t have to follow city requirements, or listen to anybody. So they did something I’ll never forget: as they waited a few months or a year for what they knew would be their ultimate victory over the temporary stay of demolition granted to opponents, the univ. obnoxiously went ahead and cut down the old live oaks (the work of a hundred years, here in an arid area) that so beautifully and humanely made the building blend with the street.
Oh University of Texas: you know better than to ever ask me for money, right?
Now that I think about it, I believe this demolition is to add yet another practice field for football.
We build for cars, not people. The first walkable community (or 20 minute neighborhood) that I learned about was in Portland, Oregon. I now live in one but most American cities don’t have them. There are now others; however you’re correct that you’ll see many more in Europe.
An urban bike lane, at least as done down here, is going to have hundreds of curb cuts, and sometimes barriers that prevent evasive movement; and will sometimes be two way, dangerous when drivers are turning. I don’t think they are a panacea for children - you can go on any Reddit thread on same and find, while that crowd has their total uniformity of opinion as per usual, and certainly support spending more on bike lanes - they are yet keen to relate the many times they were “nearly killed” on bike lanes. And they are adults.
Bike lanes are not the solution. Unfortunately with such fast roads, we can't just paint a line on them and call it a day. There needs to be better speed control, and less cars in general. There need to be protected bike paths along major roads.
I think the infrastructure is already there. People just need to go look for it. In our city, kids are never more than a few blocks away from a city park. Then interspersed between those are the elementary playgrounds, plus the middle school has their outdoor tracks open for neighborhood use. The library has a calendar full of activities and will host meet up space for free especially if you keep your activity open to the public. Actually when we closed our group they still let us meet there. The parks dept also puts on all sorts of activities for children to meet up and I think it's expected that children will show up unsupervised as long as they bring like $4.00 to cover an arts and craft project.
Most cities in America are not like that. Only the most privileged are and I'm glad you get to experience that.
However, every day the suburban sprawl gets worse as developers build ugly cookie cutter housing with no accommodation for pedestrians and bikers. The government doesn't do much about infrastructure except expand roads which doesn't help.
Don't forget the Car and Oil industry have a lot of power here. They use some of that money to lobby for car dependency, so people have no choice but to buy their cars.
Wow. Im privileged. You don’t know who you are talking to. I phrased my response in our city because I know that every city is different and was just encouraging parents to take a look at their city website for information. I responded to you because you seemed to be open to discussion. I stand corrected and I will just leave you to your activism.
You say activism as if it's a negative thing. You are privileged to live in a walkable and safe city, whether you believe it or not.
Of course every city is different but we can generally categorized them into either "car dependent suburban sprawl" or "walkable city with community building policies and public programs". There's definitely in betweens, but it really comes down to "is it safe for my kid to roam around or not"?
I am very open to discussion.
"You don’t know who you are talking to." Who am I talking to?
you were very privileged to be able to ride your bike everywhere. However, most new suburban development only accommodates for cars, and there are few bike lanes and sidewalks.
We can't just "get our kids out of the house" because they have no way to get around anywhere meaningful independently. And since most friend groups are spread throughout different neighborhoods and even schools, kids can't just meet up with their friends by walking to the house down the road.
We didn’t need bike lanes. I am not sure I even knew of such a thing as a kid. We just got on our bike, got on the side of the road and drove wherever we wanted. We were expected to be home by dinner time. I would ride 5 miles or so to the mall, or even further to the abandoned gravel pits.
We don’t need infrastructure. Full stop.
We need parents to let their kids out the door on a daily basis. They will find friends in the neighborhood and organize ball games, or build forts, or build skateboard ramps, or play with dolls. That is what kids do.
I don't know where my comment went cause I can't find it, but basically what I said was:
We need bike lanes now. Cars go 40-50 miles an hour on the roads and few adults dare to bike on them let alone a parent wanting to let out their 9 year old. If the kid tips over on his bike, he's on the road and gets run over by a distracted driver. It's simply unrealistic to tell parents to "just let their kids out" without considering the unfriendly and car centric infrastructure.
Thanks, I appreciate your comments. You are obviously correct that some roads in some places are not safe for bikes. Others are. Parents that care about living in places where their kids can get out and free range will choose the latter.
My point is that step one is not building infrastructure. Step one is changing parental attitudes. The rest is downstream from there.
This is a classic collective action conundrum. It takes a certain critical number of people to change things when change on an individual or family level has an "activation energy barrier", and the incentive structure is against the change. The more people are united about the change, the smaller the barriers. However, if even a few people are able to overcome some barriers, it lowers the barriers for others.
yes! I think we have hope because the next generation of parents are millennials and I don't think they are going to give up their social lives as easily as gen xers did
Great article!! I remember letting my boys play outside when I made dinner(about 15 years ago) - and all the other parents hovered as their kids played outside their houses, in their front yards. I felt like a bad parent at the time - but I couldn't stand the constant hovering and I had to get dinner on the table after work. Man, I wish I would have had this intel back then so I could stop feeling guilty.
I will say my boys are comfortable making decisions and thinking through things, and cautious(sometimes) and I love hearing their stories of risks they take.
"Children who were raised on screens need more freedom out in the real world."
That is the key. Let children have more autonomy, within reason. That was the case when I was growing up. There were very few problems with kids getting into trouble.
were kids with disabilities asked what they use phones for and if they are being kept from such use? Were they asked about fears of play, of bullying, of being with other kids? Were they asked what they would like for their lives? Were they asked what they believe should be done generally regarding this topic in terms of accessibility and disability?
Kids with disabilities were not coddled like they are now, but they were placed in special classes if there was a need. Parents looked after special needs children.
I do not doubt this is true BUT i can personally attest that a son who was raised "free range" and has every opportunity to do so now is sadly badly addicted
Good point. The empirical way to study this would be to do a comprehensive study of tens of thousands of helicopter kids and compare them to free range. Which group is healthier, better adjusted and more self confident and able to contribute to society?
I would put a large bet on the free rangers. But until we know for sure, both positions are just assumptions.
School age kids may want free unstructured time with their friends, but teens seem to want time with their phones...with their friends. These are the kids that are already addicted and have difficulty living life without a phone in their hand. I see them in schools, in town, and in my own home, hanging out side by side and silent, lost in their screens, and communicating via their screens -- through privately messaging each other or relating to one another over what's happening on their phones. Even when involved in other activities, they cannot go more than a few minutes without checking their phones. I see this at the movies, during sports practices and even games and tournaments. I see it at Sweet 16s and inside car windows as these new drivers stop at red lights and on sidewalks and parking lots, checking and staring, staring and checking. Teens are the true addicts here, and the ones that confound therapists while researchers ignore them, as though it's an uphill battle not worth the fight. We can save the kids. Can we save the teens?
That's your n of 1 speaking. Meaning YOUR assumptions based on your experience. But this is not the case nationally or worldwide. I work with kids. I talk to them. I give them anonymous surveys like the one in this article. Teens also want freedom with their friends, without their phones.
Nowadays maaaany teens (way more than you can imagine) are tired of their phones and wish to be rid of them. But many parents are so overprotective they can't go anywhere or do anything worthwhile, so they escape to their phones because they have little else available.
Also... Saving the preteens means saving the teens. If you can break their phone habit as preteens and teach them how to find entertainment elsewhere, then you don't have teens who are addicted to their phones, it's pretty straightforward.
they are addicted, however. As a 16 year old I can confirm that. Also they are boring and have no conversational skills or critical thinking skills. It's tough because I wasn't allowed a phone (still am not, and idek if I'll get one when I drive) and so it feels like there's this divide between kids who didn't grow up on a phone and kids who've had one since third grade (2017). It's so hard to relate to them and I want to be friends, but it's just so hard since they are like zombies.
The above comments are reflective of the very issue I raised in my original post. First, there's the smug response about the benefits of raising a screen-free teen. Well, that's great for those who had the forethought to do that, but that's not most parents of current teens (especially older ones) from what I can tell.
Then there's the comment that invalidates my observations as simple assumptions, with the kicker that "saving the preteens means saving the teens." Well, yes. Of course. I'm talking about the current teens, those that 16-year-old Juliana Rivera speaks of in her comment, the "zombies" as she calls them. I'm talking about the teens who were 11, 12 and 13 when the pandemic hit and whose parents were instructed BY EDUCATORS to "drop the rope" when it came to screens, because they would be the only conduit through which to socialize during this scary and unpredictable time. Yet when the time came to pick that rope back up -- those same educators went silent.
Our school district is implementing a bell to ball ban, but only for underclassmen, who were already not allowed phones in their middle and elementary schools. Upperclassman are expected to already know how to control their use of devices whose algorithms are designed to prevent just that. Who would have taught or guided them to do this? This subset of the Anxious Generation is also the Lose Generation, or worse, the Forgotten Generation -- because no one (and, trust me, I have looked), not even Haidt himself, can offer a path for these older teens who, worse than being addicted, don't know they are -- and don't see any reason to look up from their screens to see what the world around them looks like. Because the screens are their world.
To the poster who insisted there are factors other than phones infecting the mental and emotional health of our teens, you are right. Phones exacerbate these problems, because they offer an instant escape route that leads NOT to healing, understanding, or problem solving, but to a barren land of numbness and useless information that is then culled into what they believe is life experience. Yes, many teens have resisted this pull; they are productive, successful, and more importantly, empathetic and kind, and see the value in looking eye to eye. They know how to excel in the world of their peers, sometimes even more so because so many of their phone addicted cohorts have dropped out of the race. Phones are not completely to blame, but try to imagine what Gen Z teens would look like without them?
There must be a way to help those teens with fractured attention spans who will soon be adults. The first step (and probably the hardest) is for those who live life by their phones acknowledge the problem. Another step is to remove phones from schools -- so that at the very least they can learn to sit in class without the distraction of looking at their phones or knowing that they will be able to look at them when class ends, and to be able to sit at lunch and navigate difficult social situations by leaning into solutions rather than escaping into the anesthetic landscape of their devices.
"Upperclassman are expected to already know how to control their use of devices whose algorithms are designed to prevent just that. Who would have taught or guided them to do this?"
I completely agree with you.
I'm just trusting that over time my generation will mature or be forced to.
So many kids haven't even started the race. They don't know what to do with their lives but I do. So I'm going to use this opportunity to get ahead while everybody else takes years to pull it together.
I feel compassion for them, but there's also not much we can do for them (other than change gov. regulations and ban phones at school).
It is in their hands to jump on the self improvement ladder. One of the first steps in self improvement and self discipline is getting rid of your addictions. There's apps that help people get rid of addictions. (eg. Quittr)
There is definitely a market for self improvement and a pathway out of phone brainrot, but that is simply something that will be left to each his own. (not sure if I used that phrase right 😭)
Also, a huge part of self improvement is going outside for the health and fitness benefits. Lots of people have easy access to parks and trails, but there's still such a large population who don't.
If you guys want us to go outside, you have to give us the infrastructure for it. Don't make us wait till we get our license (and then at that point we have to get a job because gas and insurance are expensive, oh, and we risk our lives literally every single day just to get to school, work (which we do for the car money), and sports (which we need to do to be healthy, because we live in a sedentary and unwalkable society)
Again I agree with you, and give kudos to your parents (and you, of course) for cultivating interests outside of the phones. I agree that nature has tremendous benefits in every way, as well as physical activity. I don't agree that we don't provide those opportunities for our kids. As Haidt and others point out, chronic phone use leeches motivation, interest, and enjoyment in activities that once offered pleasure. It's hard to know what's what with teens because it's not unusual for them to try an activity or a sport for a while, and then decide it's not for them, or that something else is more compelling. But when nothing interests them besides what's behind the screen, when no person or activity is enjoyable or even bearable without a phone in hand -- that's when it's a problem. Teachers aren't the only ones complaining about fractured attention spans; coaches are, too. Many private schools resist phone bans because paying parents want to be able to reach their children wherever, whenever -- calling the principal's office to send an important message doesn't cut it anymore. Because, apparently, all messages are important. And that's where I believe society needs a reset with the parents who have either 1) resigned themselves to their kids living life on line or 2) manifest their own anxieties about being out of touch with their children for a few hours each day. Kids in my town have plenty of great opportunities to engage in important life forward activities. Many of them, like you, see them as a chance to get ahead of those who, as you say, haven't even entered the race. But others -- both kids and parents -- have given up on these offerings. Kids, because they don't care. And parents because they are tired of fighting. Because it's exhausting.
It's always baffled me why any parent would spend hundreds of dollars on something that clearly has so many negative consequences for their children. My 12-year-old son knows that when he gets a job and saves up enough money, he can buy himself a phone. Until then, he has to sit in the car and stare out the window or listen to adult conversations when we are out with friends. He'll eventually get a job, save the money and get a phone, but by that time he'll be older and his brain more developed from reading and physical exercise. I'm hoping that will help him make better decisions regarding balanced device use.
Make it minimum age of 18. My kids did not get theirs until 16. 9th grade. That was 5-10 years ago. Worst thing we ever, ever did. Its so unhealthy. A total addiction and destruction of their mental health. The schools should never be allowing phones. You would not give children drugs and then teach them how to use them responsibly.
I'm teaching Middle School at an American international school in India. Since the administration has banned phone use in school there is robust and positive energy in the hallways and fewer distractions in class. I still do most of my work with board and marker and have the kids write by hand in class. Class is designed to maximize discussion between students, create space for kinesthetic activities and develop critical writing skills. Technology is used as a tool to enhance this approach, not as the driving force behind instruction.
This is not true. On play dates, they just want to play video games. My kid has opportunities to go to the park unsupervised to meet with friends and is still addicted to screens.
This is probably the most important information and change needed for kids today. I hope this is shared far and wide, and that parents with kids act, right away, opening their front doors all down the street.
We could start by having designated days/times when we close neighborhood streets from cars, for outdoor play, so that parents start feeling comfortable enough.
Eventually that won’t be necessary, as it’s a muscle that just needs to become exercised again.
Ironically I’m online reading this because I cannot sleep. School starts next week and I’ve not fully figured out my ten year old’s afterschool plan. This article makes me think I need less of a plan and more of a shift in MY mindset.
The risks of not letting your children engage in free play — by themselves and with other kids — are much greater than the risks of allowing them to do so. While my family does live in a safe semi-suburban/rural neighborhood, I let my kids play outside for hours by themselves, and I know that’s contributed to their curiosity, confidence, problem-solving abilities and even, I believe, their intelligence.
Kids emulate adults, not just other kids. If in-person culture is mostly dead in the US, they will emulate the adults being online. We need to reboot our culture, so adults have reasons to be together in person, not just in churches and workplaces. Discussion/reading groups, folk dances, music jams, festivals, presentations by people about topics they are passionate about, and other civic clubs for example. Maybe even good old fashioned economic interdependence, where people make and do stuff for each other around them, instead of getting it and giving it to abstract and far away institutions. If the only glue we have is our children and believing absurd dogmas (which is what costly signaling requires), then online zombie culture will always win.
I agree with this so much!
Thank you so much for your continued effort to inform parents. It's often the kids that get the blame, but it's not their fault they're being bubble wrapped. Risky Play = Resiliency.
Yes, our generation (X) got much more free play time with friends and in the neighborhoods where we grew up. Unfortunately, those of us who’d LIKE to give our kids more ‘free roam’ time and opp’ties are not given cultural or legal permission to do so; it is widespread frowned upon, stigmatized, culturally/ socially prohibited…
Totally agree. It's kind of like how they pointed out how it's hard to go send your kid out to play when no other kids are out there. Not only are they keeping their kids inside but they are also judging you.
Pretty depressing. But then, I'm 72, grew up in a small Ohio town called Westerville (it's not so small now!), and had the run of the place, in town and the surrounding farms, a new housing development, and even a swamp. I walked to school every year but jr. high. I recommend a Japanese show you can still see on Netflix called, "Old Enough," where 3 & 4 year olds are sent alone fairly far from home to run an errand for their parents. It shows how comfortable kids even that age can be. They solve their own problems, navigate strange places with appropriate directions, and accomplish tasks that would challenge a high school kid in our time and place. Whatever happened to the pioneer spirit, anyway? We infantalize our young to their long-lasting detriment.
I remember that show!
Please please please:
Don't forget to mention that we need better infrastructure. We need to design family centered, walkable neighborhoods that kids are safe to play in and get around independently.
Kids don't go outside because there's no where to go and no way to get there. We are so car dependent and that is what I believe mostly contributes to the loneliness epidemic and isolation among non-driving kids and teens.
I am so so passionate about this and my goal this semester is to publish a big research paper on my Substack, and later use it for lobbying in my North-Atlanta suburban county. It's going to be called something like "how car centric design contributes to the loneliness epidemic among youth and general health crisis in America"
I'm going to have a section about the loneliness epidemic, another one about the health crisis, and another about child development in suburban America compared to walkable European countries.
Speaking of walkable European countries, I just went to Italy for 22 days, Corsica for 2 days, and the car free town of Zermatt, Switzerland, for 2 days. On this trip I interviewed at least 25 different kids from different places in Italy, and I've already published the Zermatt interviews.
I would really appreciate if you took a look at that. It's on my Substack and my YouTube channel. I also posted a video on my Substack of myself kicking around a soccer ball with some boys on an open street in Italy.
I plan to interview more kids in my suburban hometown so people can watch and compare the interviews. The interviews from Zermatt might be helpful to your research and persuasive writing. There's an emphasis on independence there, and at one point a girl in the interview told me "you will see like no kids walking around with their parents".
Zermatt Interview Youtube: https://youtu.be/IOIn5sntN2w?si=ZhNxT47zCvT4T71L
No kids with parents Youtube Short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dW7TorjLmbc
Zermatt Interview Substack: https://julianarivera.substack.com/p/what-is-childhood-and-teen-life-like
Zermatt Report Substack: https://julianarivera.substack.com/p/zermatt-the-car-free-swiss-town-of
Soccer On Street Substack: https://julianarivera.substack.com/p/the-first-and-last-time-i-experienced
I don’t know about better infrastructure but I’ve thought about this a lot in connection with “what we used to do”. The neighborhoods many of us grew up in had streets that weren’t very wide which paradoxically meant less speeding (I think this is well-established). But spacious enough for games. But also, the developers hadn’t grown so greedy as to lot size. Our houses were often on quarter acre lots. But even in the more modest neighborhood where I first lived, in the 70s, the ranch style houses on smaller lots, compelled a certain lot width.
It’s true when we were older we didn’t play in the back yards nearly as much as the front. Unless someone had a trampoline or a pool.
But the key thing was the front yards provided lots of room to play, and people parked their cars in their garages, or up their driveways toward what was generally a rear garage. If a car was out front, in the street, it was a guest.
Nowadays I see that the neighborhoods have such narrow lots, the houses nearly touching, and built sort of shotgun style on the lot, that there is very little space between driveways.
And in any case, half the front elevation of the house is garage - there are no more rear, detached garages. The “driveways” are short stubs that also break up the available play area. Often people have stuffed their garage full of possessions so have crammed two or three cars onto the tiny driveway. This means that even if a sidewalk was provided, it’s usually blocked by a car.
And people have more vehicles than they used to. So many.
These often line the streets on both sides.
I totally agree that this seems not optimal for free play. The yards are too small for play, the streets are full of parked cars; if you cycled you’d have no way to cleave to the side of the road. Maybe there’s a sidewalk, if you’re lucky, on one side of the street, but like I said it too is blocked at intervals by all these trucks and SUVs.
If there’s a park nearby, then that works I guess but only if kids are allowed to get there by themselves. And if it’s not full of nuisance behavior by “adults”.
Yeah, nuisance behavior by "adults" is what drove our neighborhood is what drove our neighborhood to create a neighborhood association. We were creating activities so that we could take up space in the parks and make it more inviting to families. And also serve as pushback to those trying to take over the parks for themselves.
You perfectly described my neighborhood. There's kids, but we have no place to play or meet up because we all have private tiny patios, and parents don't want to let their kids into private homes, which makes sense. What we need to do is have more public and shared third places for people to meet and kids to play. However, developers are greedy and they want to maximize the amount of houses in a piece of land instead of allotting space to improve quality of life.
I don't think the solution is to go back to building houses with big backyards because
- it increases sprawl and decreases density (not good)
- fewer and fewer people can afford it, land is simply running out, the population is growing, and unlike before, fewer people are going to get lots of land or even be property owners to begin with. Home ownership is going down, and rental is going up. More and more people are going into small houses (like my family) and it's simply not worth it (or fair) to make them pay for a useless patio that is divided by a fence and HOA regulated.
We don't use our patio. We might as well be living in a townhome. And I'd rather that, because many new (upscale) townhome developments include some sort of shared lawn or pocket parks in the master plan.
Single Family Home:
- small
- separate from the next house by like 15 feet
- tiny, fenced, useless patio that keeps people separated and kids isolated
Townhome
- small
- attached to the next house
- shared green space where kids can walk out the door and immediately see who's ready to play
I thought of that latter when I saw plans in my former city to tear down an old public housing project. It had a certain deco charm, as modest buildings of the 30s and 40s often do; and so on those grounds the demolition had been resisted for years. But I guess the people who resisted have died, and people now are looking forward to the demolition because they said they wanted their public housing to look like “everyone else’s (newer) housing“ (blend in). And they understandably were looking forward to better kitchens.
I couldn’t help but notice, though that the new place will be a monolithic midrise building. I can’t remember maybe 5 to 10 stories. Whereas The old project was small, single or at most two-story buildings dotted amid open space and trees.
I just thought, it honestly seems kind of convenient to be able to open your door and let your kid out to play there and you can see him out the window, or sit on the steps, go in and out easily …
The new building will offer nothing of that sort at all.
But I never want what other people want, it seems.
yeah... they don't really know any better. That's just what happens in a consumeristic and materialistic society. People end up wanting what is newer and shinier, even if it's not better.
We have some awesome architecture like that in Atlanta (which just keeps rising in value), but new housing obviously outnumbers it.
Yes, they’ve recently knocked down the most charming deco student housing at the university. It would break your heart if you saw the picture. Honestly, it looked like something out of dwell magazine, it was so cool and integrated with the outdoors, perfectly scaled …
And the Deco period wasn’t really that long, having been interrupted.
They also knocked down the 30s vintage school of social work that was a perfectly serviceable and attractive building. It’s hard for me to imagine what sort of in-person classroom requirements that could possibly evolved in 2025, necessitated this demolition. It was opposed by preservationists, pretty thoroughly, even found a race angle - but the state doesn’t have to follow city requirements, or listen to anybody. So they did something I’ll never forget: as they waited a few months or a year for what they knew would be their ultimate victory over the temporary stay of demolition granted to opponents, the univ. obnoxiously went ahead and cut down the old live oaks (the work of a hundred years, here in an arid area) that so beautifully and humanely made the building blend with the street.
Oh University of Texas: you know better than to ever ask me for money, right?
Now that I think about it, I believe this demolition is to add yet another practice field for football.
We build for cars, not people. The first walkable community (or 20 minute neighborhood) that I learned about was in Portland, Oregon. I now live in one but most American cities don’t have them. There are now others; however you’re correct that you’ll see many more in Europe.
We have politicians actively trying to dismantle bike lanes and paths. The oil industry reach is very far and very well paid.
An urban bike lane, at least as done down here, is going to have hundreds of curb cuts, and sometimes barriers that prevent evasive movement; and will sometimes be two way, dangerous when drivers are turning. I don’t think they are a panacea for children - you can go on any Reddit thread on same and find, while that crowd has their total uniformity of opinion as per usual, and certainly support spending more on bike lanes - they are yet keen to relate the many times they were “nearly killed” on bike lanes. And they are adults.
Bike lanes are not the solution. Unfortunately with such fast roads, we can't just paint a line on them and call it a day. There needs to be better speed control, and less cars in general. There need to be protected bike paths along major roads.
the good thing is that we still have a lot of undeveloped land so we it’s not to late to change our ways and start doing things right.
I think the infrastructure is already there. People just need to go look for it. In our city, kids are never more than a few blocks away from a city park. Then interspersed between those are the elementary playgrounds, plus the middle school has their outdoor tracks open for neighborhood use. The library has a calendar full of activities and will host meet up space for free especially if you keep your activity open to the public. Actually when we closed our group they still let us meet there. The parks dept also puts on all sorts of activities for children to meet up and I think it's expected that children will show up unsupervised as long as they bring like $4.00 to cover an arts and craft project.
Key word: "In our city"
Most cities in America are not like that. Only the most privileged are and I'm glad you get to experience that.
However, every day the suburban sprawl gets worse as developers build ugly cookie cutter housing with no accommodation for pedestrians and bikers. The government doesn't do much about infrastructure except expand roads which doesn't help.
Don't forget the Car and Oil industry have a lot of power here. They use some of that money to lobby for car dependency, so people have no choice but to buy their cars.
Wow. Im privileged. You don’t know who you are talking to. I phrased my response in our city because I know that every city is different and was just encouraging parents to take a look at their city website for information. I responded to you because you seemed to be open to discussion. I stand corrected and I will just leave you to your activism.
You say activism as if it's a negative thing. You are privileged to live in a walkable and safe city, whether you believe it or not.
Of course every city is different but we can generally categorized them into either "car dependent suburban sprawl" or "walkable city with community building policies and public programs". There's definitely in betweens, but it really comes down to "is it safe for my kid to roam around or not"?
I am very open to discussion.
"You don’t know who you are talking to." Who am I talking to?
When we were kids we rode our bikes everywhere. Now with e-bikes the range is even greater.
Of course most of our friends lived on the block or cul-de-sac. Why is this no longer practical?
We don’t need to redesign our cities or infrastructure. We need to get our kids out of the house.
you were very privileged to be able to ride your bike everywhere. However, most new suburban development only accommodates for cars, and there are few bike lanes and sidewalks.
We can't just "get our kids out of the house" because they have no way to get around anywhere meaningful independently. And since most friend groups are spread throughout different neighborhoods and even schools, kids can't just meet up with their friends by walking to the house down the road.
We didn’t need bike lanes. I am not sure I even knew of such a thing as a kid. We just got on our bike, got on the side of the road and drove wherever we wanted. We were expected to be home by dinner time. I would ride 5 miles or so to the mall, or even further to the abandoned gravel pits.
We don’t need infrastructure. Full stop.
We need parents to let their kids out the door on a daily basis. They will find friends in the neighborhood and organize ball games, or build forts, or build skateboard ramps, or play with dolls. That is what kids do.
I don't know where my comment went cause I can't find it, but basically what I said was:
We need bike lanes now. Cars go 40-50 miles an hour on the roads and few adults dare to bike on them let alone a parent wanting to let out their 9 year old. If the kid tips over on his bike, he's on the road and gets run over by a distracted driver. It's simply unrealistic to tell parents to "just let their kids out" without considering the unfriendly and car centric infrastructure.
Thanks, I appreciate your comments. You are obviously correct that some roads in some places are not safe for bikes. Others are. Parents that care about living in places where their kids can get out and free range will choose the latter.
My point is that step one is not building infrastructure. Step one is changing parental attitudes. The rest is downstream from there.
This is a classic collective action conundrum. It takes a certain critical number of people to change things when change on an individual or family level has an "activation energy barrier", and the incentive structure is against the change. The more people are united about the change, the smaller the barriers. However, if even a few people are able to overcome some barriers, it lowers the barriers for others.
Yes, a good start is to focus on infrastructure. But it goes way beyond cars. See my comment above, please.
yes! I think we have hope because the next generation of parents are millennials and I don't think they are going to give up their social lives as easily as gen xers did
Great article!! I remember letting my boys play outside when I made dinner(about 15 years ago) - and all the other parents hovered as their kids played outside their houses, in their front yards. I felt like a bad parent at the time - but I couldn't stand the constant hovering and I had to get dinner on the table after work. Man, I wish I would have had this intel back then so I could stop feeling guilty.
I will say my boys are comfortable making decisions and thinking through things, and cautious(sometimes) and I love hearing their stories of risks they take.
"Children who were raised on screens need more freedom out in the real world."
That is the key. Let children have more autonomy, within reason. That was the case when I was growing up. There were very few problems with kids getting into trouble.
were kids with disabilities asked what they use phones for and if they are being kept from such use? Were they asked about fears of play, of bullying, of being with other kids? Were they asked what they would like for their lives? Were they asked what they believe should be done generally regarding this topic in terms of accessibility and disability?
Kids with disabilities were not coddled like they are now, but they were placed in special classes if there was a need. Parents looked after special needs children.
I do not doubt this is true BUT i can personally attest that a son who was raised "free range" and has every opportunity to do so now is sadly badly addicted
Good point. The empirical way to study this would be to do a comprehensive study of tens of thousands of helicopter kids and compare them to free range. Which group is healthier, better adjusted and more self confident and able to contribute to society?
I would put a large bet on the free rangers. But until we know for sure, both positions are just assumptions.
School age kids may want free unstructured time with their friends, but teens seem to want time with their phones...with their friends. These are the kids that are already addicted and have difficulty living life without a phone in their hand. I see them in schools, in town, and in my own home, hanging out side by side and silent, lost in their screens, and communicating via their screens -- through privately messaging each other or relating to one another over what's happening on their phones. Even when involved in other activities, they cannot go more than a few minutes without checking their phones. I see this at the movies, during sports practices and even games and tournaments. I see it at Sweet 16s and inside car windows as these new drivers stop at red lights and on sidewalks and parking lots, checking and staring, staring and checking. Teens are the true addicts here, and the ones that confound therapists while researchers ignore them, as though it's an uphill battle not worth the fight. We can save the kids. Can we save the teens?
That's your n of 1 speaking. Meaning YOUR assumptions based on your experience. But this is not the case nationally or worldwide. I work with kids. I talk to them. I give them anonymous surveys like the one in this article. Teens also want freedom with their friends, without their phones.
Nowadays maaaany teens (way more than you can imagine) are tired of their phones and wish to be rid of them. But many parents are so overprotective they can't go anywhere or do anything worthwhile, so they escape to their phones because they have little else available.
Also... Saving the preteens means saving the teens. If you can break their phone habit as preteens and teach them how to find entertainment elsewhere, then you don't have teens who are addicted to their phones, it's pretty straightforward.
they are addicted, however. As a 16 year old I can confirm that. Also they are boring and have no conversational skills or critical thinking skills. It's tough because I wasn't allowed a phone (still am not, and idek if I'll get one when I drive) and so it feels like there's this divide between kids who didn't grow up on a phone and kids who've had one since third grade (2017). It's so hard to relate to them and I want to be friends, but it's just so hard since they are like zombies.
The above comments are reflective of the very issue I raised in my original post. First, there's the smug response about the benefits of raising a screen-free teen. Well, that's great for those who had the forethought to do that, but that's not most parents of current teens (especially older ones) from what I can tell.
Then there's the comment that invalidates my observations as simple assumptions, with the kicker that "saving the preteens means saving the teens." Well, yes. Of course. I'm talking about the current teens, those that 16-year-old Juliana Rivera speaks of in her comment, the "zombies" as she calls them. I'm talking about the teens who were 11, 12 and 13 when the pandemic hit and whose parents were instructed BY EDUCATORS to "drop the rope" when it came to screens, because they would be the only conduit through which to socialize during this scary and unpredictable time. Yet when the time came to pick that rope back up -- those same educators went silent.
Our school district is implementing a bell to ball ban, but only for underclassmen, who were already not allowed phones in their middle and elementary schools. Upperclassman are expected to already know how to control their use of devices whose algorithms are designed to prevent just that. Who would have taught or guided them to do this? This subset of the Anxious Generation is also the Lose Generation, or worse, the Forgotten Generation -- because no one (and, trust me, I have looked), not even Haidt himself, can offer a path for these older teens who, worse than being addicted, don't know they are -- and don't see any reason to look up from their screens to see what the world around them looks like. Because the screens are their world.
To the poster who insisted there are factors other than phones infecting the mental and emotional health of our teens, you are right. Phones exacerbate these problems, because they offer an instant escape route that leads NOT to healing, understanding, or problem solving, but to a barren land of numbness and useless information that is then culled into what they believe is life experience. Yes, many teens have resisted this pull; they are productive, successful, and more importantly, empathetic and kind, and see the value in looking eye to eye. They know how to excel in the world of their peers, sometimes even more so because so many of their phone addicted cohorts have dropped out of the race. Phones are not completely to blame, but try to imagine what Gen Z teens would look like without them?
There must be a way to help those teens with fractured attention spans who will soon be adults. The first step (and probably the hardest) is for those who live life by their phones acknowledge the problem. Another step is to remove phones from schools -- so that at the very least they can learn to sit in class without the distraction of looking at their phones or knowing that they will be able to look at them when class ends, and to be able to sit at lunch and navigate difficult social situations by leaning into solutions rather than escaping into the anesthetic landscape of their devices.
"Upperclassman are expected to already know how to control their use of devices whose algorithms are designed to prevent just that. Who would have taught or guided them to do this?"
I completely agree with you.
I'm just trusting that over time my generation will mature or be forced to.
So many kids haven't even started the race. They don't know what to do with their lives but I do. So I'm going to use this opportunity to get ahead while everybody else takes years to pull it together.
I feel compassion for them, but there's also not much we can do for them (other than change gov. regulations and ban phones at school).
It is in their hands to jump on the self improvement ladder. One of the first steps in self improvement and self discipline is getting rid of your addictions. There's apps that help people get rid of addictions. (eg. Quittr)
There is definitely a market for self improvement and a pathway out of phone brainrot, but that is simply something that will be left to each his own. (not sure if I used that phrase right 😭)
Also, a huge part of self improvement is going outside for the health and fitness benefits. Lots of people have easy access to parks and trails, but there's still such a large population who don't.
If you guys want us to go outside, you have to give us the infrastructure for it. Don't make us wait till we get our license (and then at that point we have to get a job because gas and insurance are expensive, oh, and we risk our lives literally every single day just to get to school, work (which we do for the car money), and sports (which we need to do to be healthy, because we live in a sedentary and unwalkable society)
Again I agree with you, and give kudos to your parents (and you, of course) for cultivating interests outside of the phones. I agree that nature has tremendous benefits in every way, as well as physical activity. I don't agree that we don't provide those opportunities for our kids. As Haidt and others point out, chronic phone use leeches motivation, interest, and enjoyment in activities that once offered pleasure. It's hard to know what's what with teens because it's not unusual for them to try an activity or a sport for a while, and then decide it's not for them, or that something else is more compelling. But when nothing interests them besides what's behind the screen, when no person or activity is enjoyable or even bearable without a phone in hand -- that's when it's a problem. Teachers aren't the only ones complaining about fractured attention spans; coaches are, too. Many private schools resist phone bans because paying parents want to be able to reach their children wherever, whenever -- calling the principal's office to send an important message doesn't cut it anymore. Because, apparently, all messages are important. And that's where I believe society needs a reset with the parents who have either 1) resigned themselves to their kids living life on line or 2) manifest their own anxieties about being out of touch with their children for a few hours each day. Kids in my town have plenty of great opportunities to engage in important life forward activities. Many of them, like you, see them as a chance to get ahead of those who, as you say, haven't even entered the race. But others -- both kids and parents -- have given up on these offerings. Kids, because they don't care. And parents because they are tired of fighting. Because it's exhausting.
https://screenstrong.substack.com/p/can-you-raise-a-teen-today-without
It's always baffled me why any parent would spend hundreds of dollars on something that clearly has so many negative consequences for their children. My 12-year-old son knows that when he gets a job and saves up enough money, he can buy himself a phone. Until then, he has to sit in the car and stare out the window or listen to adult conversations when we are out with friends. He'll eventually get a job, save the money and get a phone, but by that time he'll be older and his brain more developed from reading and physical exercise. I'm hoping that will help him make better decisions regarding balanced device use.
Make it minimum age of 18. My kids did not get theirs until 16. 9th grade. That was 5-10 years ago. Worst thing we ever, ever did. Its so unhealthy. A total addiction and destruction of their mental health. The schools should never be allowing phones. You would not give children drugs and then teach them how to use them responsibly.
I'm teaching Middle School at an American international school in India. Since the administration has banned phone use in school there is robust and positive energy in the hallways and fewer distractions in class. I still do most of my work with board and marker and have the kids write by hand in class. Class is designed to maximize discussion between students, create space for kinesthetic activities and develop critical writing skills. Technology is used as a tool to enhance this approach, not as the driving force behind instruction.
Just want to point out that Roblox is not an online “game.” It’s an online game platform, with many games.
This is not true. On play dates, they just want to play video games. My kid has opportunities to go to the park unsupervised to meet with friends and is still addicted to screens.
I had lots of free play outside as a kid. I loved it!
This is probably the most important information and change needed for kids today. I hope this is shared far and wide, and that parents with kids act, right away, opening their front doors all down the street.
We could start by having designated days/times when we close neighborhood streets from cars, for outdoor play, so that parents start feeling comfortable enough.
Eventually that won’t be necessary, as it’s a muscle that just needs to become exercised again.
Or just tell kids to look both ways.
It's not hard to avoid getting hit by cars, especially in a residential zone
This is our concern too. How early is too early to expect kids to look both ways? My 4 yo is pretty good..
Ironically I’m online reading this because I cannot sleep. School starts next week and I’ve not fully figured out my ten year old’s afterschool plan. This article makes me think I need less of a plan and more of a shift in MY mindset.
The risks of not letting your children engage in free play — by themselves and with other kids — are much greater than the risks of allowing them to do so. While my family does live in a safe semi-suburban/rural neighborhood, I let my kids play outside for hours by themselves, and I know that’s contributed to their curiosity, confidence, problem-solving abilities and even, I believe, their intelligence.