The anti-smartphone movement is gaining momentum. On March 25, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning children under the age of 14 from accessing social media platforms. In February, the British government Supports stricter guidance To prevent children from using smartphones at school.Over the past year, grassroots organizations such as smartphone free childhood The film gained national fame as parents worry about the damage screens and social media are having on young people’s mental health.
At the root of all this concern is a frighteningly difficult question. It’s about how smartphones are affecting our mental health. The answer depends on who you ask.For some people, smartphones erode our happiness It’s overwhelming.others refute it not that strong.There is blogafter that counter blogeach referring to the same scientific paper and often drawing opposite conclusions.
Into this maelstrom we can add two books published within a week of each other and located on opposite sides of the battle.in An anxious generation: How a massive rewiring of childhood is driving an epidemic of mental illness.social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt makes the case that smartphones and social media are the main cause of the decline in young people’s mental health seen in many countries since the early 2010s.
The early 2010s were decisive, Haidt argues. Because that’s when smartphones really started to transform childhood into something unrecognizable. In June 2010, Apple introduced the first front-facing camera, and a few months later his Instagram was published on his App Store. For Hite, it was a fateful combination. Children were suddenly always online, always on screens, and often connected in ways that were detrimental to their well-being. The result was a “tsunami” of anxiety, depression and self-harm, primarily affecting young girls.
But Hite says smartphones are only part of the problem. A culture of “safetyism” that locks children indoors, protects them from danger, and replaces rough and free play with adult-led organized sports, or worse, prevents healthy development among children in the West. He thinks he’s being hindered. video game. As evidence of safetyism in action, Hite includes photos of playground merry-go-rounds from the 1970s (“the greatest piece of equipment ever invented”) and modern equipment designed with safety in mind. Contrasting sets and therefore children have less opportunity to learn from risky play.
This is Haidt’s Great Rewiring in a nutshell: childhood switches from being primarily play-based to being phone-based, resulting in young people being less happy as children and less capable as adults. Thing. Hite seems to claim they’re doing a lot more. boring. Today’s U.S. high school seniors are less likely to have drunk alcohol, had sex, gotten a driver’s license, or worked than high school seniors in previous years. Haidt argues that young people who are wrapped up in the fabric of their parents and addicted to online life are not transitioning into adulthood in a healthy way.
These arguments are well known in Haidt’s 2018 book. sweetness of the American heart, co-authored with journalist and activist Greg Lukianoff. Haidt suggests that not only are American children in worse mental health than ever before, but modern parenting and technology are hindering their transition to adulthood. “Once upon a time, when new generations were hooked on smartphones, in front At the onset of adolescence, the flow of information that they saw and heard left little room for guidance from real-world community leaders. meanwhile Adolescence,” Haidt writes in his latest book.
