I work in behavioral health and most of my career my work has been with teens and young adults. I have never been more concerned than I am right now. I specialize in working with people with substance use disorders, particularly those with trauma backgrounds. The anhedonia that I see in young people is frightening. Many of my clients literally have no engagement with the “outside world” other than through digital media. Their friends are “online,” they don’t work, they don’t know what they want to do, they can’t articulate any goals. They don’t want to get driver’s license because it’s too scared and causes anxiety. They don’t have the skills to move out and live on their own. They don’t socialize with anyone outside of the home. They’re afraid to try new things. They are content to look at their phones and play video games. I’ve made it part of my intake now, when working with depressed teens and young adults, I immediately start probing into time spent online. It seems like they’re either checking out digitally or checking out with drugs and alcohol. But either way, they view the world and the expectations of adult life to be scarey and overwhelming.
The good news is that kids are starting to recognize this. The norms are shifting rapidly: a few years ago, the alpha teens were the ones who were the most plugged-in. Now, the alphas are the ones who are too cool to be plugged in.
What do you suggest they do as an alternative to communicating with their friends over the phone? As you say, they don't socialize with anyone outside of the home. When do they have opportunities to do that? Remember that most parents won't let them move out into the world on their own.
They will all have their personal Alexa to comfort them and be their "friend" once AI is fully established. We are about to inflict a nightmare world on our children.
Given the incredibly scary profile you describe, we no longer have the luxury of time to figure it all out over many years. With another generation's mental well being at stake, parents and educators need data driven guidance which finally exists.
BTW an important institution is now adding a simple question to its intake interview: "when did you get your first smartphone?"
"Parents understandably want to be able to reach their children when they are away from home"
Is this in fact understandable? I would assume that the parents of just about everyone reading this piece had neither the ability, nor likely the desire to be able to directly reach their children when they were away from home. We survived.
The desire to get in touch with your kids directly when they're outside the home strikes me as a symptom of helicopter parenting and a potential pretext for caving on the smartphone front.
This is easily accomplished with a dumb phone. Or a pager. Or a tile will GPS them anywhere, anytime. There are tons of choices for remaining connected to your child that does not give them unfettered access to social media.
I find the data in your other articles more compelling. Advent of smartphone use at younger ages could simply be a clear signal of more "neglectful" parenting, where they will simply shove a table or smartphone into their kids' hands to occupy them. These would obviously also correlate with poorer outcomes on the metrics you list.
This is how I also feel. And usually these parents (of corse not always) but are low income single family homes who are working or to busy watching jerry springer (RIP) and on disability for no good reason. Sad situation for children. Here is a tablet, now go to your room. The government will pay the phone bill for me. Want a soda? Dinners in the microwave.
But all the young adults I know who have parents with very intensive jobs who aren’t around much Dr’s etc their teens have high anxiety and are very addicted to the phones.
Hi Sandro, the pattern prevails even among those who indicate no parental neglect -- also we need to ask, "why are boys different?". Sapien Labs data, the largest in the world, measures "the whole person". You can take the confidential assessment at sapienlabs.org/mhq Rob (Board Member)
I quoted "neglect" because I'm not talking about significant or criminal forms of neglect. I don't know if that's what you're also referring to as well.
Boys can be different for many reasons, for instance, things vs. people is a theory for why the genders seem to differentially prefer various subjects/careers. Boys seem to prefer thing-oriented tasks and careers. Phones and tablets are things to play with, so right in their wheelhouse.
Instead, girls might see phones and tablets as a means to deal or connect with other people, and maybe it's just not rewarding in the ways that a people-oriented mindset is expecting/desiring.
How was "parental neglect" defined in the questions asked?
Yesterday I was at a restaurant, at nearby tables there were two separate families with kids; the parents were barely interacting among themselves, the kids were left basically alone with their mobiles, which were undoubtedly providing them with more enticing interaction.
I do classify that as parental neglect, what about you?
Responding to myself, after having read the questions in the linked-above questionnaire.
If the question being asked is "Prolonged emotional or psychological abuse or neglect from parent/caregiver", then it doesn't define what "neglect" is, and leaves that to the reader's interpretation.
It may very well be that kids who have grown in an environment in which they have been emotionally neglected by their parents by *our definition* of "neglect" might not feel the same about their condition as we do looking at it from outside, simply because *they wouldn't know* how it could have otherwise been.
True Sandro, but it could also be that with Covid19 lockdown the parents who resisted to give their young kids a phone got a powerful "validation" and endorsement from Government and Schools, conveying the ideas that it was a safe thing to do. Suddenly with lockdown every child was "in need" of a phone that's what dozens of parents have reported. At least, this could explain why the smartphone world "entry age" was lowered across countries simultaneously.. so maybe, not because of "neglectful parents" but because of stressed (digitally illiterate?) parents who got (conveniently) mislead by National Institutions decision ?
This is all great. I love your work. As a parent with a young child, I can't think of a topic that is more pressing.
But. I do need to find solutions and plan for the future. Would you ever be willing to hold, for example, weekend open threads where people could exchange parenting strategies that address some of the issues you raise? It would take some moderation, because, unfortunately, nothing turns out the crazies like people discussing parenting (some one always ends up shouting about how, like, cupcakes are abuse or something). But despite the uphill battle, I would be grateful for a space where people are taking the ideas you are presenting seriously, and brainstorming ways to integrate that into their child rearing practices.
this is a really interesting idea. i can't do a thing till i write the book and it comes out, next march. but after that, i'll consider this. thank you!
I've been following Melanie Hempe's "ScreenStrong" podcast lately. A great resource for parents! After lived through a son's video game addiction, she started this non-profit. She's a nurse. Also, I have just finished Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and am doing a Digital Detox with my kids (16, 14, 12) this month. The book talks about how to do this.
I also follow ScreenStrong and find it inspiring and hope-filled. I love the practical tips! I just wish there were more families in my area committed to avoiding toxic screens.
I really feel like the tide is starting to shift toward reducing screen time for many people. I think it's similar to smoking--it took awhile for people to realize the harms and figure out how to stop, but eventually the benefits were undeniable. And people got more and more resources to help them quit!
Gnoment, this is a great idea! In the meantime let me suggest to contact the International Coach Federation or others Coach association (or lose coaches), as co-creating conversations that support resourcefulness and resilience is coaches' core business and they usually have a set of pro-bono hours for social projects- They could use their talent to serve the community with projects like these and make a difference.
When our kids were in elementary, the school was the biggest problem. They wanted kids to have their own devices for schoolwork and kept telling us to send them. Every other kid had phones. We refused to give them phones, we got Amazon Fire tablets that only worked on Wifi not on cellular and then I installed software to block the social media apps and filter the browser. Son didn't get phone until 9th grade when he joined marching band. Daughter got it in 8th for the same reason, but the sex differences in how the phone is used is obvious to us. Son uses it but is not obsessed by it because the video games available on the phone simply don't compare to the actual computer. But the daughter has her head constantly buried in it between social media or youtube videos.
My wife and I are releasing a podcast on this topic this Friday so we'll definitely include this study and your article. Thank you so much for putting this info together.
This is very interesting research. I did some work myself with the GSS dataset to see if I could find a correlation between time spent using electronics and self-assessed mental health/social connectedness. I found that there's little to no impact until a certain threshold of use is reached, after which health/connectedness drops precipitously. In GSS, there's no way to tell whether being lonely and unhappy causes people to spend more time watching TV/using the internet or vice versa, but the Sapien data provides that missing piece.
Parents tell me all the time, “we try our best, but little Johnny loves Cheetos/Dr pepper/etc etc…”
My (inner monologue) response: “does he have a driver’s license? Does he have a job? Pretty impressive he can, at age 7, drive himself to the store and afford a grocery cart full of junk food…”
The standard public fool system cafeteria serves a lot of processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup that are approved by the FDA and the USDA.
Your inner monologue needs to become more totally externalized.
If child protective services were doing their job properly, such parents would receive a visit.
How about “wait until never”? Adam Carolla has a funny bit about the difference between the smoking groups and the gun groups. The smokers’ groups were always happy to compromise (stay out of no smoking section? Ok! Only smoke at the bar? Ok! Etc etc), whereas the gun groups fight even the smallest regulation (from our cold dead hands, etc) - the result being that a couple decades later smoking is all but gone, while gun rights are as strong as ever. (Please don’t attack me over gun topic, just using Carolla’s illustration to make a point)
In other words, strong stands seem to trump compromise. I’d lean towards laws banning childhood smartphones, or parent movements pressuring against them altogether, not wait until high school type equivocations…
However, I understand I’m in the minority here. Was listening to a great podcast about the issue with Dr Kardaras about this, and his motto too is “delay delay delay.” I’d prefer “don’t even think about it!” But what do I know?
Also not wanting to waste time getting into gun rights debate but they are far from "as strong as ever". They take blows nearly every year, the most recent that im aware of which the ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) making millions of citizens felons overnight by arbitrarily deciding to reclassify pistol braces as stocks (with no Congressional action). For those that don't know, this means they demand all your info, the right to inspect your car/house/business throughly at any time for any reason (waiver of the 4th amendment), and a $200 tax per item in exchange for a vauge promise to not be charged as a felon for something that's been purchased legally, and has been legal. Some other recent blows were the ATF doing the same thing for FRTs, autokeycards, and bump stocks (the last at request of trump after Las Vegas shooting).
The regulation of the first amendment is extremely heavy, if you don't believe me go to a local gun shop and try to buy a rifle or shutgun with a less than 16" barrel, a silencer, or something automatic. Your talking at minimum almost a year waiting period, multiple background checks, permanent waiver of 4th amendment, large taxes, and exorbinant prices. Most places will downright refuse because of local government or they didn't want to waive their own rights and pay extra taxes to the ATF themself. You can't even get automatics unless they were made before 1986 (before NFA) and have had flawless paperwork handling since then. They are exceedingly expensive/low-supply too.
Anyways, my point being I'm not so sure the "make no compromise" is as effective as you think it is and will struggle to work for "phone rights" primarily because of the state of smartphones in school is already very bad so we don't have the same starting condition as gun rights. Aka the direction of the strategy is wrong: defense of gun rights are resisting change, "phone rights" are promoting change from current state. Non-compromise isnt a good strategy for promoting change as the most probable outcome is no change. The strategy of the anti-smoking and anti-gun activists may be more effective: somewhat slowly whittling it away.
I mean, I get it, but I also know through my practice and friends quite a few families whose teens don’t have smartphones. It is possible. To use cigarette example, look at any movie from 40s/50s/60s/70s/80s, smoking casually everywhere. We put that genie back in the bottle, and frankly social media is arguably way more harmful than secondhand smoke!
Are you suggesting perhaps a sort of permanent generational ban on smartphones for anyone born after a certain year, like New Zealand is currently doing for tobacco? That would kinda be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Tobacco doesn't really have anything redeeming about it, especially in the form of cigarettes, while the same cannot be said about smartphones. Yes, social media has a dark side, but at least that can be reformed somewhat.
I do t know about “permanent generational” but more like treating it like cigarettes or booze or porn, you can’t sell it to kids, kids can’t have it on school/public property, stuff like that? What do you think? Just brainstorming…
Yes social media has good sides (like substack!) I just don’t know if in kids based on all the research above we should keep taking chances on this…
Even then, it would still be throwing out the baby with the bathwater IMHO.
I don't really know what a real solution would look like that would not involve some very difficult and painful tradeoffs, which would also inevitably spill over onto adults as well. But whatever age limit (if any) is set for it, I certainly don't think the age limit should be any *higher* than the legal age of majority, 18. And even that is a bit high IMHO.
May 16, 2023·edited May 16, 2023Liked by Jon Haidt
Quick, someone in power declare a state of emergency, activate the internet kill switch, put all social media (broadly defined) under "quarantine" for "just two weeks" (right!), and have a smartphone buyback program, STAT! And put a moratorium on all new smartphone purchases as well. And perhaps even ban public possession of such devices too.
I mean, we were willing to indefinitely shut down the economy and put everyone except those deemed "essential" (read: expendable) under indefinite house arrest, and so on, all based on far less evidence than even a preponderance, right?
I might have missed this in the post: is this controlled for year of birth? If I understand your point correctly, it should make your case stronger if it's still significant when controlling for it.
Jonathan, do you have any plans to include the ongoing debate regarding privacy and authoritarianism when it comes to age verification?
While protecting kids online through strong age verification sounds admirable, it appears that many ongoing efforts (such as the U.K. Online Safey Bill) have potentially devastating side effects for things like encryption, the right to privacy, and an increase in state-sponsored mass surveillance around the world.
As someone who cares a ton about the topics you are addressing in After Babel, I (and perhaps others) would certainly feel more secure if the dangerous side of age verification (namely the slippery slope towards erosion of privacy rights) was explored in your writings.
Though the linked post appears ostensibly concerned with popups, there is some useful information about the erosion of privacy towards the middle and end of the article:
> the UK legislative discussion is not just about preventing children from accessing those four kinds of content. It’s about mandating age verification for anything and everything, for every user, of every age, in front of access to all topics, all subjects, all sites, all service providers, all opinions, and all content. The whole public open web. Everything.
>
> If you’re explaining this to someone who’s good at their job, they will immediately comprehend how this regime (e.g. identity verification packaged as age verification packaged as child safety, imposed over all content on all topics, again packaged as child safety) could be abused, in their own domestic political contexts, for matters which have nothing to do with children or online safety.
I forgot to share these earlier, but several notable figures and organizations have written more eloquently and completely about this topic as well, so I thought I would share links to those posts as well:
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/all-seeing-i (this isn’t about age verification specifically, but is rather an analysis of efforts to protect the vulnerable being readily exploitable for mass surveillance).
When you do your own analysis on the SapienLab data for Anglosphere (figure 6 and 7), how large are the samples in 5-8 and 17-18? These, to me just looking at the graphs, are the rank outliers, and I just wonder whether that is a function of low numbers in those groups? If you remove those data points, there doesn't seem to be that much difference in reported outcomes for kids given a phone at 9-10 than at 15-16.
Thank you for continued work in ensuring that our children have a fighting chance at mental and social well-being. I particularly appreciate your implications for parents, schools, and legislation. The traditional route to change is to “coax, convince, encourage, encourage, push, push, push”. Unfortunately it doesn’t work, and even worse, it often backfires and can cause increased resistance, tension, and frustration. Rather than pushing, 'catalysts' are needed to remove roadblocks to change. I just published "A Hostage Negotiator's Guide to Cognitive Liberty" which provides parents with practical guidance for changing digital device habits. https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/a-hostage-negotiators-guide-to-cognitive.
I work in behavioral health and most of my career my work has been with teens and young adults. I have never been more concerned than I am right now. I specialize in working with people with substance use disorders, particularly those with trauma backgrounds. The anhedonia that I see in young people is frightening. Many of my clients literally have no engagement with the “outside world” other than through digital media. Their friends are “online,” they don’t work, they don’t know what they want to do, they can’t articulate any goals. They don’t want to get driver’s license because it’s too scared and causes anxiety. They don’t have the skills to move out and live on their own. They don’t socialize with anyone outside of the home. They’re afraid to try new things. They are content to look at their phones and play video games. I’ve made it part of my intake now, when working with depressed teens and young adults, I immediately start probing into time spent online. It seems like they’re either checking out digitally or checking out with drugs and alcohol. But either way, they view the world and the expectations of adult life to be scarey and overwhelming.
Wow Tamera, this is so powerful . May i quote this in my talks or my writing?
let's help each other cross-pollinate, Jon & Zach
🙏🏼
The good news is that kids are starting to recognize this. The norms are shifting rapidly: a few years ago, the alpha teens were the ones who were the most plugged-in. Now, the alphas are the ones who are too cool to be plugged in.
https://open.substack.com/pub/gomakeitreal/p/kids-are-rejecting-the-high-tech
thanks for your comment, Tamera 🙏🏼
i'd like to put my recent post (re: digital heroin) on your radar. https://opentochange.substack.com/p/growing-up-before-digital-heroin
Thank you!
🙏🏼
Thanks for the link Darren, gonna check this out
What do you suggest they do as an alternative to communicating with their friends over the phone? As you say, they don't socialize with anyone outside of the home. When do they have opportunities to do that? Remember that most parents won't let them move out into the world on their own.
They will all have their personal Alexa to comfort them and be their "friend" once AI is fully established. We are about to inflict a nightmare world on our children.
Given the incredibly scary profile you describe, we no longer have the luxury of time to figure it all out over many years. With another generation's mental well being at stake, parents and educators need data driven guidance which finally exists.
BTW an important institution is now adding a simple question to its intake interview: "when did you get your first smartphone?"
"Parents understandably want to be able to reach their children when they are away from home"
Is this in fact understandable? I would assume that the parents of just about everyone reading this piece had neither the ability, nor likely the desire to be able to directly reach their children when they were away from home. We survived.
The desire to get in touch with your kids directly when they're outside the home strikes me as a symptom of helicopter parenting and a potential pretext for caving on the smartphone front.
This is easily accomplished with a dumb phone. Or a pager. Or a tile will GPS them anywhere, anytime. There are tons of choices for remaining connected to your child that does not give them unfettered access to social media.
🎯
I find the data in your other articles more compelling. Advent of smartphone use at younger ages could simply be a clear signal of more "neglectful" parenting, where they will simply shove a table or smartphone into their kids' hands to occupy them. These would obviously also correlate with poorer outcomes on the metrics you list.
This is how I also feel. And usually these parents (of corse not always) but are low income single family homes who are working or to busy watching jerry springer (RIP) and on disability for no good reason. Sad situation for children. Here is a tablet, now go to your room. The government will pay the phone bill for me. Want a soda? Dinners in the microwave.
But all the young adults I know who have parents with very intensive jobs who aren’t around much Dr’s etc their teens have high anxiety and are very addicted to the phones.
Absent parents? Present phones?
Hi Sandro, the pattern prevails even among those who indicate no parental neglect -- also we need to ask, "why are boys different?". Sapien Labs data, the largest in the world, measures "the whole person". You can take the confidential assessment at sapienlabs.org/mhq Rob (Board Member)
I quoted "neglect" because I'm not talking about significant or criminal forms of neglect. I don't know if that's what you're also referring to as well.
Boys can be different for many reasons, for instance, things vs. people is a theory for why the genders seem to differentially prefer various subjects/careers. Boys seem to prefer thing-oriented tasks and careers. Phones and tablets are things to play with, so right in their wheelhouse.
Instead, girls might see phones and tablets as a means to deal or connect with other people, and maybe it's just not rewarding in the ways that a people-oriented mindset is expecting/desiring.
How was "parental neglect" defined in the questions asked?
Yesterday I was at a restaurant, at nearby tables there were two separate families with kids; the parents were barely interacting among themselves, the kids were left basically alone with their mobiles, which were undoubtedly providing them with more enticing interaction.
I do classify that as parental neglect, what about you?
Responding to myself, after having read the questions in the linked-above questionnaire.
If the question being asked is "Prolonged emotional or psychological abuse or neglect from parent/caregiver", then it doesn't define what "neglect" is, and leaves that to the reader's interpretation.
It may very well be that kids who have grown in an environment in which they have been emotionally neglected by their parents by *our definition* of "neglect" might not feel the same about their condition as we do looking at it from outside, simply because *they wouldn't know* how it could have otherwise been.
True Sandro, but it could also be that with Covid19 lockdown the parents who resisted to give their young kids a phone got a powerful "validation" and endorsement from Government and Schools, conveying the ideas that it was a safe thing to do. Suddenly with lockdown every child was "in need" of a phone that's what dozens of parents have reported. At least, this could explain why the smartphone world "entry age" was lowered across countries simultaneously.. so maybe, not because of "neglectful parents" but because of stressed (digitally illiterate?) parents who got (conveniently) mislead by National Institutions decision ?
Dear After Babel Team -
This is all great. I love your work. As a parent with a young child, I can't think of a topic that is more pressing.
But. I do need to find solutions and plan for the future. Would you ever be willing to hold, for example, weekend open threads where people could exchange parenting strategies that address some of the issues you raise? It would take some moderation, because, unfortunately, nothing turns out the crazies like people discussing parenting (some one always ends up shouting about how, like, cupcakes are abuse or something). But despite the uphill battle, I would be grateful for a space where people are taking the ideas you are presenting seriously, and brainstorming ways to integrate that into their child rearing practices.
Thank you!
this is a really interesting idea. i can't do a thing till i write the book and it comes out, next march. but after that, i'll consider this. thank you!
I've been following Melanie Hempe's "ScreenStrong" podcast lately. A great resource for parents! After lived through a son's video game addiction, she started this non-profit. She's a nurse. Also, I have just finished Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and am doing a Digital Detox with my kids (16, 14, 12) this month. The book talks about how to do this.
Great tip!
I also follow ScreenStrong and find it inspiring and hope-filled. I love the practical tips! I just wish there were more families in my area committed to avoiding toxic screens.
I really feel like the tide is starting to shift toward reducing screen time for many people. I think it's similar to smoking--it took awhile for people to realize the harms and figure out how to stop, but eventually the benefits were undeniable. And people got more and more resources to help them quit!
Gnoment, this is a great idea! In the meantime let me suggest to contact the International Coach Federation or others Coach association (or lose coaches), as co-creating conversations that support resourcefulness and resilience is coaches' core business and they usually have a set of pro-bono hours for social projects- They could use their talent to serve the community with projects like these and make a difference.
When our kids were in elementary, the school was the biggest problem. They wanted kids to have their own devices for schoolwork and kept telling us to send them. Every other kid had phones. We refused to give them phones, we got Amazon Fire tablets that only worked on Wifi not on cellular and then I installed software to block the social media apps and filter the browser. Son didn't get phone until 9th grade when he joined marching band. Daughter got it in 8th for the same reason, but the sex differences in how the phone is used is obvious to us. Son uses it but is not obsessed by it because the video games available on the phone simply don't compare to the actual computer. But the daughter has her head constantly buried in it between social media or youtube videos.
"Not being left out" is slowly becoming "not being left out of the asylum" . Blue light destroys dopamine and the hormonal cycle through the eye:
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/the-1-emf-youve-forgotten-about#%C2%A7life-cycles-are-light-cycles
My wife and I are releasing a podcast on this topic this Friday so we'll definitely include this study and your article. Thank you so much for putting this info together.
There are blue light filters like the Twilight app, and also blue light filter glasses. Just saying.
(And before you say anything, perfect solutions do NOT exist for anything, period. Everything has trade-offs.)
This is very interesting research. I did some work myself with the GSS dataset to see if I could find a correlation between time spent using electronics and self-assessed mental health/social connectedness. I found that there's little to no impact until a certain threshold of use is reached, after which health/connectedness drops precipitously. In GSS, there's no way to tell whether being lonely and unhappy causes people to spend more time watching TV/using the internet or vice versa, but the Sapien data provides that missing piece.
The same parents reward their children with snacks and soft drinks full of high fructose corn syrup.
Parents tell me all the time, “we try our best, but little Johnny loves Cheetos/Dr pepper/etc etc…”
My (inner monologue) response: “does he have a driver’s license? Does he have a job? Pretty impressive he can, at age 7, drive himself to the store and afford a grocery cart full of junk food…”
The standard public fool system cafeteria serves a lot of processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup that are approved by the FDA and the USDA.
Your inner monologue needs to become more totally externalized.
If child protective services were doing their job properly, such parents would receive a visit.
What do you think you know about my inner monologue?
How safe are they for adults?
Good question. Being the relatively privileged class, adults are the "absent referent" here.
How about “wait until never”? Adam Carolla has a funny bit about the difference between the smoking groups and the gun groups. The smokers’ groups were always happy to compromise (stay out of no smoking section? Ok! Only smoke at the bar? Ok! Etc etc), whereas the gun groups fight even the smallest regulation (from our cold dead hands, etc) - the result being that a couple decades later smoking is all but gone, while gun rights are as strong as ever. (Please don’t attack me over gun topic, just using Carolla’s illustration to make a point)
In other words, strong stands seem to trump compromise. I’d lean towards laws banning childhood smartphones, or parent movements pressuring against them altogether, not wait until high school type equivocations…
However, I understand I’m in the minority here. Was listening to a great podcast about the issue with Dr Kardaras about this, and his motto too is “delay delay delay.” I’d prefer “don’t even think about it!” But what do I know?
More here on that great podcast:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/worth-the-fight-the-science-behind
And thank you, as always, for all y’all do!
Also not wanting to waste time getting into gun rights debate but they are far from "as strong as ever". They take blows nearly every year, the most recent that im aware of which the ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) making millions of citizens felons overnight by arbitrarily deciding to reclassify pistol braces as stocks (with no Congressional action). For those that don't know, this means they demand all your info, the right to inspect your car/house/business throughly at any time for any reason (waiver of the 4th amendment), and a $200 tax per item in exchange for a vauge promise to not be charged as a felon for something that's been purchased legally, and has been legal. Some other recent blows were the ATF doing the same thing for FRTs, autokeycards, and bump stocks (the last at request of trump after Las Vegas shooting).
The regulation of the first amendment is extremely heavy, if you don't believe me go to a local gun shop and try to buy a rifle or shutgun with a less than 16" barrel, a silencer, or something automatic. Your talking at minimum almost a year waiting period, multiple background checks, permanent waiver of 4th amendment, large taxes, and exorbinant prices. Most places will downright refuse because of local government or they didn't want to waive their own rights and pay extra taxes to the ATF themself. You can't even get automatics unless they were made before 1986 (before NFA) and have had flawless paperwork handling since then. They are exceedingly expensive/low-supply too.
Anyways, my point being I'm not so sure the "make no compromise" is as effective as you think it is and will struggle to work for "phone rights" primarily because of the state of smartphones in school is already very bad so we don't have the same starting condition as gun rights. Aka the direction of the strategy is wrong: defense of gun rights are resisting change, "phone rights" are promoting change from current state. Non-compromise isnt a good strategy for promoting change as the most probable outcome is no change. The strategy of the anti-smoking and anti-gun activists may be more effective: somewhat slowly whittling it away.
Well said, thank you!
"Wait until never" is completely unrealistic though. The genie is out of the bottle, and has been for a while now.
I mean, I get it, but I also know through my practice and friends quite a few families whose teens don’t have smartphones. It is possible. To use cigarette example, look at any movie from 40s/50s/60s/70s/80s, smoking casually everywhere. We put that genie back in the bottle, and frankly social media is arguably way more harmful than secondhand smoke!
Are you suggesting perhaps a sort of permanent generational ban on smartphones for anyone born after a certain year, like New Zealand is currently doing for tobacco? That would kinda be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Tobacco doesn't really have anything redeeming about it, especially in the form of cigarettes, while the same cannot be said about smartphones. Yes, social media has a dark side, but at least that can be reformed somewhat.
I do t know about “permanent generational” but more like treating it like cigarettes or booze or porn, you can’t sell it to kids, kids can’t have it on school/public property, stuff like that? What do you think? Just brainstorming…
Yes social media has good sides (like substack!) I just don’t know if in kids based on all the research above we should keep taking chances on this…
Even then, it would still be throwing out the baby with the bathwater IMHO.
I don't really know what a real solution would look like that would not involve some very difficult and painful tradeoffs, which would also inevitably spill over onto adults as well. But whatever age limit (if any) is set for it, I certainly don't think the age limit should be any *higher* than the legal age of majority, 18. And even that is a bit high IMHO.
(Mic drop)
"it's always impossible, until it's done" -
Nelson Mandela
Quick, someone in power declare a state of emergency, activate the internet kill switch, put all social media (broadly defined) under "quarantine" for "just two weeks" (right!), and have a smartphone buyback program, STAT! And put a moratorium on all new smartphone purchases as well. And perhaps even ban public possession of such devices too.
I mean, we were willing to indefinitely shut down the economy and put everyone except those deemed "essential" (read: expendable) under indefinite house arrest, and so on, all based on far less evidence than even a preponderance, right?
/s
Also, how about doing a smartphone buyback program, similar to gun buybacks?
I might have missed this in the post: is this controlled for year of birth? If I understand your point correctly, it should make your case stronger if it's still significant when controlling for it.
Jonathan, do you have any plans to include the ongoing debate regarding privacy and authoritarianism when it comes to age verification?
While protecting kids online through strong age verification sounds admirable, it appears that many ongoing efforts (such as the U.K. Online Safey Bill) have potentially devastating side effects for things like encryption, the right to privacy, and an increase in state-sponsored mass surveillance around the world.
As someone who cares a ton about the topics you are addressing in After Babel, I (and perhaps others) would certainly feel more secure if the dangerous side of age verification (namely the slippery slope towards erosion of privacy rights) was explored in your writings.
As an example, Heather Burns has done extensive write ups on the ramifications of the U.K. Online Safety bill: https://webdevlaw.uk/2022/06/17/data-reform-bill-cookie-popups/
Though the linked post appears ostensibly concerned with popups, there is some useful information about the erosion of privacy towards the middle and end of the article:
> the UK legislative discussion is not just about preventing children from accessing those four kinds of content. It’s about mandating age verification for anything and everything, for every user, of every age, in front of access to all topics, all subjects, all sites, all service providers, all opinions, and all content. The whole public open web. Everything.
>
> If you’re explaining this to someone who’s good at their job, they will immediately comprehend how this regime (e.g. identity verification packaged as age verification packaged as child safety, imposed over all content on all topics, again packaged as child safety) could be abused, in their own domestic political contexts, for matters which have nothing to do with children or online safety.
thanks. i do want to read oppposing arguments; i'll read the uk report.
Thank you!
I forgot to share these earlier, but several notable figures and organizations have written more eloquently and completely about this topic as well, so I thought I would share links to those posts as well:
From the EFF:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/age-verification-mandates-would-undermine-anonymity-online
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/kids-online-safety-act-still-huge-danger-our-rights-online
From Mullvad:
https://mullvad.net/en/chatcontrol
From Signal:
https://signal.org/blog/uk-online-safety-bill/
From Edward Snowden:
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/all-seeing-i (this isn’t about age verification specifically, but is rather an analysis of efforts to protect the vulnerable being readily exploitable for mass surveillance).
From The NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/technology/internet-age-check-proof.html
Indeed, mandatory age verification is a Trojan horse. Be VERY careful what you wish for!
When you do your own analysis on the SapienLab data for Anglosphere (figure 6 and 7), how large are the samples in 5-8 and 17-18? These, to me just looking at the graphs, are the rank outliers, and I just wonder whether that is a function of low numbers in those groups? If you remove those data points, there doesn't seem to be that much difference in reported outcomes for kids given a phone at 9-10 than at 15-16.
Indeed, the very early and very late groups both seem to be outliers.
How about (relatively) phone-free workplaces for adults as well? After all, you wouldn't want to be flaming hypocrites, amirite?
Thank you for continued work in ensuring that our children have a fighting chance at mental and social well-being. I particularly appreciate your implications for parents, schools, and legislation. The traditional route to change is to “coax, convince, encourage, encourage, push, push, push”. Unfortunately it doesn’t work, and even worse, it often backfires and can cause increased resistance, tension, and frustration. Rather than pushing, 'catalysts' are needed to remove roadblocks to change. I just published "A Hostage Negotiator's Guide to Cognitive Liberty" which provides parents with practical guidance for changing digital device habits. https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/a-hostage-negotiators-guide-to-cognitive.