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I teach middle school in a large district in the American Midwest.

Jonathan Haidt is winning the fight against smartphones in schools, but the fight is far from won. The next years will require us to look in detail into what school districts are doing. We must ensure that districts’ cell phone bans are substantive and not just “bans” in name only.

Our district has a bell-to-bell cell phone "ban". In theory, students are required to keep their cell phones off and in their lockers throughout the school day. In practice, almost every student carries their smartphone with them at all times and most likely uses it frequently if clandestinely several times each day.

The disparity comes from the district's enforcement policy: Students caught with their cell phones have their phones confiscated *for only the current class period*, provided they comply with the request to give the teacher their phone. Even if they do not comply, they only lose their phones for the remainder of the school day - Remember, the official rule is ALREADY that students leave their cell phones in their lockers for the school day. Only students who are both habitual offenders AND habitually refuse to hand over their phones when caught regularly suffer further consequences. Even then, the usual consequence is that the student turns in their cell phone to the main office at the beginning of each day before their first class. Again, the official rule is ALREADY that students leave their cell phones in their lockers for the school day.

If you are in a district with a cell phone ban, then find out how the policy is enforced. If the enforcement lacks substance, then do something about it. Write to your school board member, or even speak at a school board meeting.

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It would also help if parents would stop buying smartphones for their kids. Basic flip phones & landlines would go a long way.

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I hope you're right about the turning point! At a holiday gathering with several other families, I replicated Nicholas Smyth's experiment: I asked the teenagers whether they felt they would be happier and healthier if smartphone and social media technology had never been invented. Around 80% said yes, they would be better off.

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I am glad this is the case, but this is not the experience I have with the middle school students I teach. My students generally express disbelief when presented with the idea that their phones are harming them.

I don't know the nature of the teenagers you asked, but Nicholas Smyth's students are from a decidedly non-diverse sample (students who go to college).

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That makes sense that middle schoolers are not at the right stage of development to see the harm. I think the hope for middle schoolers [and younger children] lies with having informed and empowered parents who DELAY smartphones/social media for their children. I think things are more hopeful for younger elementary kids as their parents will be more informed before they hit middle school due to the Anxious Generation and other related information that's now available. As a side note I think Haidt and Rausch are phenomenal at informing the public about the phone based childhood's harms, but I think that Melanie Hempe's Screenstrong https://screenstrong.substack.com/ does the best job at laying out practical applications for parents on how to go about giving our children a better upbringing.

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Thank you for all the amazing work that you all are doing! I think it is telling that your top read article is The Ed Tech Revolution Has Failed. Parents and educators have recognized this yet big tech has embedded itself in education and it is not letting go. Disturbingly now, as an educator, I am inundated daily with advertisements pushing AI products to use with students. These products are not improving learning, they are degrading it and creating so many negative unintended consequences along the way while the developers are profiting significantly. I hope the momentum from your work continues to grow and will help undue the death grip that big tech has on education!

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I just found out from my 10-yr old nephew yesterday that he's limiting his screen time to one hour per day, because being on the phone longer "just didn't feel right."

Does anyone else personally find that children are tapping into that type of intuition?

Amazing!

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My middle school students treat the school cell phone ban as an annoyance and a joke, so no.

That said, it is amazing that your nephew is doing this! I wish all 10-year olds were that self aware and mature.

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I hope you will also give a nod to artists who are pushing back against social media addiction, featuring projects like our "Book of Cells" on your site. Art changes culture as does academic writing. Please don't leave artists out! https://www.pelicanmedia.org/cellphone-chronicles

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"EdTech revolution has failed." I read this one first. Fascinating. My wife is involved in "education". we are very involved in her work with the school. We must as a "nation" improve our schools and teaching involved. I know this is a "general statement" but must follow Europe and other countries in how we teach and look at things.

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Love should give people a sense of freedom, not a feeling of imprisonment.

——Sons and Lovers (written by D. H. Lawrence)

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Liked. Now would you please put out a print edition so I don’t have to be on my goddamned phone to read it?! 😂

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Thank you Jon and Zach for the update on your campaign which I completely support. As a 72 year old father of 2 girls, I readily admit that I did not initially understand why so many children, teenagers and young adults were struggling so much with the smartphone. I immediately saw it as a bad influence (and didn't use it myself) but I did not understand how manipulative and damaging it was for young people ...

Then I discovered Freya's beautiful, emotional writing and became aware of the severity of the problems my (and subsequent generations) had created for the very people we were supposed to protect. To be honest, it made me ashamed that although I had always resisted the uncontrolled march of invasive technology, I hadn't done more to protect young people because I assumed that, like me, they could just "switch it off".

Thanks to Freya and to "The Anxious Generation", which is a wonderful book, I now feel much more aware of the problems and what we can do reduce the damage that is being caused.

Thank you to all at After Babel and I wish a very happy and successful New Year to you all.

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As damaging as social media might be (and obviously is), we need to remember that smartphones, wifi, cell towers and other smart devices also produce toxic microwave radiation pollution. Radiation which is non-native to planet Earth and known to be toxic to all biological life.

This pollution cannot be shielded or reduced because the pollution is not a byproduct of wireless technology, it is the technology itself (the carrier signal). This is what makes wireless technology one of the most stupid and reckless technologies ever invented (to be fair before the 1980's it was only ever used as a weapon and that's all anyone thought it was good for).

Insects and birds do not (as far as we know) use social media. Yet they are dying in droves since the rollout of consumer cell phones (and their corresponding cell towers). As a general rule, the smaller the animal the less radiation is required to injure or kill it. That's why insects have been in decline for decades, and then small birds began to be decimated, and now we are seeing even large birds dropping right out of the skies next to cell towers. See video...

https://odysee.com/@CoronaStudies:3/CS-BLINDED-BY-TV:c

Studies on large birds have also found a correlation between proximity to cell towers and (what we might call) woke culture, feminism and progressive ideology. The birds furthest from cell towers were observed pair bonding, building nests, laying eggs, raising young, home baking, eating family dinner together etc. The closer to cell towers the birds were, the more this normal and 'traditional' behaviour began to unravel with fewer eggs, less care building nests, more young dying or failing to hatch and a general breakdown of family life. The birds closest to cell towers were observed to be incapable (or unwilling) to pair bond at all, or build nests, or do anything productive. They either fought each other or sat motionless staring out to space.

Is it really that much of a stretch to consider microwave poisoning as a likely cause of similar behaviours in humans, and especially young people (who are more sensitive to microwaves due to their smaller size, thinner skulls, higher water content etc)?

Of course not. The angst, dysphoria, distress, mood swings, anxiety, depression, reduced ability to concentrate and chronic fatigue that now afflict so many young people (and adults too) are all well established symptoms of microwave radiation poisoning. Wifi has already been banned in French and Russian schools because the children were getting so sick. Other countries are also losing court cases on existing discrimination laws (not accommodating children who are particularly sensitive to wifi).

The problem is that wireless tech is a multi trillion dollar industry ad everyone is addicted to its power - from the technocratic class to the ordinary consumer. Nobody wants to admit this technology is inherently toxic to life because admitting that leads to the inevitable conclusion that it has to all be put in a giant dumpster and we will have to go back to 1995 and ethernet cables! (albeit with modern day computing speeds and internet speeds).

Banning social media for kids isn't going to make much difference at all if the primary problem is that we are all being poisoned by an invisible smog of microwave radiation. Children born after 2000 are the first humans in history to have been born and raised in a wifi / cell phone environment. They are also the most distressed, unhealthy, debilitated generation we've ever had.

And what do they crave? ...... a 'safe space' to get away from all the 'microaggressions'. This just happens to be a perfect diagnosis of someone who is sensitive to microwaves (so called 'electrohypersensitive' people). The only difference is that people who have figured out that it's wireless pollution that is making them feel so terrible are able to escape the cities to live in a cabin in the woods (or even their car!) and they do get relief and lose their symptoms if they can stay away from wireless tech. Often these people spent years being undiagnosed/ misdiagnosed before finally realising it was wireless pollution that was affecting them so badly.

Kids who still have no idea that wireless pollution is poisoning them will tend to project the symptoms of their poisoning onto society (helped by progressive teachers and parents) and conclude that it's 'society' which is toxic (the patriarchy, male gaze, microagressions, systemic oppression etc). We see the same with (for example) constipated toddlers who throw tantrums and find the world unbearable place because they cannot quite pinpoint the source of their distress. After they've been to the toilet (which is a detox process) they feel much better and the world stops being oppressive and unbearable.

I would guesstimate 90% of the distress, angst and dysphoria young people feel is the result of being poisoned 24/7 by wireless pollution. The other 10% is caused by being terminally online. We are all frogs in a microwave with the power being gradually turned up.

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Electromagnetic radiation is not toxic. It is essentially the same thing as sunlight or the infrared heat radiation every object emits. All life on Earth is dependent on sunlight, a potentially deadly radiation that is non-native to Earth.

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"Electromagnetic radiation is not toxic"

That's a very sweeping statement which is also incorrect.

We know that EMF from wireless tech is harmful to biological life because we can observe biological life being harmed by it.

The logic of your argument is to first claim elephants cannot cause harm (which is wrong anyway), and then to claim that all the people who have been trampled in the vicinity of elephants should be ignored because elephants cannot cause harm.

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Thanks for pointing out the elephant in the room!

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Happy New Year! Thank you John and After Babel for all the important work you do! Forge ahead!

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What a year! So grateful for all of your work in this space on behalf of us all! ❤️

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Congrats Jon and team! I've been following Jon for a decade now and have been spreading the gospel to whomever will listen. He just beat my friend on the Goodreads 2024 reader's Choice awards ("It's Not Hysteria") and no one was even mad. The message is too clear and important. Keep up the great research and compassionate messaging.

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Thank you, Jon and Zach, for creating such a clear path forward! I suspect our cornered opponents - social media, EdTech, and device manufacturers - will fight back even harder in 2025. Our collective action as young people (we need to hear more from them!), parents, researchers, and advocates must persevere.

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Your content is essential, historic, but most importantly, inspiring. Whether it’s a digital detox cleanse or showing up alone at an event, I push through my edge as a “loner” and occasionally find a fulfilling connection.

Your work serves as compelling evidence, despite academia’s overly conservative (small c) pride in the scientific method, to take action. I’m launching my next chapter as a pioneering entrepreneur to reinvent public libraries as a sanctuary of deep learning and like-minded community building.

Thank you 🫶🏼🙏🏼🍀✨

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ASYMPTOMATIC SPREAD

Up to 60% of anxious people are cured by placebo... When that placebo is ANGER...

We don't think we need to properly ask about it and WE ARE ZERO PERCENT ACCURATE

Do we also miss that when our NEURAL PATHWAYS ARE ACTIVATED BY THE JOY OF SEX.. the act of pumping out the last male's ejaculate is ACTIVATING THE NEURAL PATHWAYS OF OUR JOY OF SABOTAGE?😳🤔🙄😮😝🙃?

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In Sum: Anxiety is hidden when it becomes hidden anger which manifests in HIDDEN ACTS OF (joyful?) SABOTAGE?

Examples of the Joy of Sabotage:

The Clown slips on the banana peel

The Boston Tea Party

Mitch McConnell pledges to SABOTAGE each new president AND HIS CAUCUS REMAINS IN LOCKSTEP FOR YEARS AND YEARS

Harry in chapter two of FEELING GOOD TOGETHER by Dr Burns

UC Berkeley Schadenfreude Lab

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Anger and anxiety are both instinctive responses to fear. Yes, anger can neutralize fear and anxiety, but it is psychologically and relationally destructive, and also of temporary duration. Not a good "cure."

And yes, we are biologically hardwired to enjoy sex, but treating it as an extrinsic reward opens a can of worms that leads to dependence (needing it to feel better), resentment (when your partner doesn't want to do it), and distraction from underlying problems.

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Let's collaborate!?😁😁😁😁👍

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Dramatization of this metaphor as a mnenonic using a remake of TITANIC

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI9s4fzXLYsFQBqjuPdDs3g

Note: the pieces of cargo are often WATERTIGHT and imminently cleanable... verses the hugely more insidious ANGER analogous to BEING BOILED IN CARCINOGENIC SLUDGE... aka "Anger is a Very Sticky Business"(as facebook algorithms prove?)

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