How Did We Go from A Play-Based To A Phone-Based Childhood?
What social psychologist Jonathan Haidt told the founders of Smartphone Free Childhood.
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Resonant Parenting Project #10
On Thursday evening, I attended an online conversation between social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and Clare Fernyhough and Daisy Greenwell, the founders of Smartphone Free Childhood. Clare and Daisy had felt they faced an impossible dilemma: Override their concerns about smartphones and give them to their kids before secondary school; or risk them being left out by their peers. They decided to support one another to delay buying their kids smartphones, and set up a Whatsapp group in early February. Within 24 hours, thousands of parents had joined. Clare and Daisy said they had never dreamt that so many other parents felt the same way, and that this really was an ‘accidental movement.’
Clare and Daisy introduced Jonathan Haidt as “the fire” behind the Smartphone Free Childhood, and Clare described his new book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental illness as the bible for parents who feel that childhood has taken the wrong direction since the iPhone.
Here are some key points from the webinar:
1. The Teenage Mental Health Crisis Has Surged Since 2010
Haidt’s primary focus is to explain the international adolescent mental health crisis. He showed numerous graphs demonstrating that rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicides have surged since 2010 among teenagers across all English-speaking countries, including the UK.
2. From a Play-Based to a Phone-Based Childhood
Haidt’s theory is that we’ve replaced a play-based childhood (which faded out gradually between 1980-2010) with a phone-based childhood (he said it’s an incredibly fast onset between 2010-2015 with the introduction of the iPhone, social media, and high-speed internet). Haidt pinpoints the year 2010 as the year when the great rewiring of childhood began.
3. Overprotected Kids in The Real World, Underprotected Kids Online
Haidt claims that “we have overprotected our children in the real world, and under protected them online.” Haidt believes that over time parents have become more fearful and overprotective in the offline world, delaying the age at which children are deemed safe enough to run errands alone, or play unsupervised. He quotes a study in The Guardian showing that our kids are spending less time playing outside which will impact their physical and mental wellbeing.
4. Harms Of A Phone-Based Childhood
Lost opportunities e.g., pushing out activities like reading
Impact on socialising (time spent with friends is down 65 percent since 2010)
Sleep deprivation
Attention difficulties
Behavioural addiction. Haidt says that giving our children mini-computers to put in their pocket when their prefrontal cortex is still developing affects a crucial period of brain development.
5. Social Media is Causing Harm to Teenage Girls
Haidt says that while social media promises connection it can be isolating and superficial, causing additional harms to teenage girls, in particular 11-13 year olds. His list of these harms included visual and social comparison (Instagram is worst), perfectionism, and being more subject to sexual predation and harassment. He also discussed unrealistic beauty standards, with girls spending money on anti-ageing skin products at increasingly younger ages.
6. Teenage Boys are Retreating From The Real World
Haidt says that boys are checking out from the ‘real world’ since the 1970s, retreating into a virtual world of porn addiction (therefore losing the drive and skills to talk to girls) and video gaming, which are fun, but addictive and isolating.
7. Collective Action Problem
Haidt says we are stuck in a ‘collective action problem’ since most parents feel alone, frustrated, and uneasy about giving their kids phones, but don’t want their kids to be left out. Haidt states we need to change the community, not just the individual. He asks what could happen if more parents came together and agreed not to give their children phones before secondary school?
8. Four Norms To Reduce Distress in Teens
Haidt says that if we followed these four norms we would bring down the rates of mental health issues sharply amongst our teenagers:
No smartphones before high school (Age 14)
No social media before 16
Phone free schools
More childhood independence and free play
Some other points discussed in the Q+A included:
No consensus amongst academic researchers
Haidt acknowledged the lack of consensus on smartphones among academic researchers. U.S. psychologist Jean Twenge and Haidt are on one side, and five other researchers are on the other side. The other side points out that the correlations for screen use and mental health issues in teens are fairly small. However, Haidt said when you look specifically at social media for girls, the correlations are higher. He recommended visiting his website to look at review documents curated by Zach Rausch and himself.
No Age Verification on The Internet
Haidt said there’s no age verification at all on the internet and this needs to change. He compares it to whether we’d allow our children access to bars and strip joints.
Kids Don’t Need to Use Tech Early to Get Ahead in Life
Haidt said to the counter argument that children need to learn to navigate technology early, that this isn’t a good argument and likened it to starting our children off with alcohol, sexual intercourse and gambling at 10 years old.
Improve Our Own Phone Use
One tip Haidt had for all of us struggling with our own phone use was to improve our evening routine, sleep and make sure we’re fully rested. He recommended making sure you don’t check your phone last thing at night, and first thing in the morning. Also turn off notifications on your phone.
My Initial Thoughts
Having worked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and read about the staggering 1.4 million referrals in 2022, I find Haidt’s argument that social media is a major factor in the teenage mental health epidemic compelling.
I also found his observation that we have shifted from a play-based to a phone-based reality alarming. Haidt said it’s not as easy for our kids to go outside for unsupervised play so he believes that parents have to be more intentional. He suggested getting a group of three to five kids together and finding other families who are on the same page. Then rotate responsibility and take it in turns to drop the kids off at the shopping centre to watch a film, go for pizza or ride bicycles, for example. He also suggested that schools could open the playground an hour earlier as kids want to run around with each other without supervision.
I’m interested in the differences between individual children. I’ve worked with clients whose kids who have struggled with their phone use, and been on TikTok for far too many hours to the detriment of other activities. However, I’ve also seen clients with kids who used smartphones from a fairly young age, and are using their phones to socialise and connect with no major problems. Can we generalise?
How much also depends on a child’s temperament, their level of emotional maturity, their ability to self-regulate, their balance of activities, school attendance and performance, friendships, family relationships, sleep, exercise, eating, particular vulnerabilities, and other factors?
What about teens who are engaging in mindless scrolling as a way to distract and numb their feelings, versus those who use it in a more intentional way to connect, learn and research things they’re interested in?
There seems to be consensus among parents who have been through this, that once you allow your child to have a smartphone with social media, it’s hard to go back. In younger children the algorithms can be alluring and take them down rabbit holes. It’s clearly a huge challenge for many parents who don’t understand the platforms their children are on to supervise them, even with parental controls. How do parents continue to be available for conversations with their kids around what they’re accessing online, with shared understandings and rules around tech use?
Haidt said during the Q+A that his own son had pushed for the Fortnite video game when all his friends had it and Haidt had refused to give it to him. He admitted that his son is still bitter about it to this day. Haidt says we now know that most boys are not harmed by Fortnite and gaming (about 5-10 percent are), and suggested that his son is very conscientious, and he could have let him play for an hour a day without him being sucked into it. He also says he managed to delay his daughter's access to social media. She is now 14 and pushing for Snapchat as she says that’s how all her friends communicate, but he has said no.
The reality is that right now, parents are still navigating a time where most of their child’s friends will have smartphones and access to social media and any kid will be socially isolated unless they have some access to a phone and at least one social media app. We know that social isolation harms our kids and that they need friends. Until norms change and tech companies take responsibility, how can parents continue to weigh up supporting their child’s social media use versus social isolation?
This is clearly an overwhelming and confusing area for parents with some rather frightening headlines and statistics. Based on the evidence we have, it certainly seems wise to delay social media, and if that’s not possible, to minimise. I still wonder if over time, there will be more nuanced ways of looking at this issue. However, I applaud the tens of thousands of parents who have joined the Smartphone Free Childhood movement of collective action that’s aiming to help change the norm. This would make more options available for parents to be able to make the decision which is right for them and their child, along with more safeguarding measures in place for the online world.
I enjoyed listening to Haidt and his level of clarity and conviction, and I’m looking forward to reading his new book which is out next Tuesday.
I write the Resonant Parenting Project in between my work as a conscious parenting coach and looking after my six-year-old daughter Matilda. Any support from readers through liking, sharing, subscribing or buying me a coffee helps make this work sustainable. Thank you!