When social psychologist Jonathan Haidt of NYU looks at the charts that track the mental health of teenagers, he sees an undeniable truth. Starting in 2012, five years after the introduction of the iPhone and two years after Instagram debuted, “anxiety and depressive disorders are skyrocketing,” he says. Since then, almost half of all teenagers say they are online ‘almost all the time’ (double from 2015) and rates of self-harm and suicide incidents among teenagers have more than doubled.
“We have never seen anything like this. There is overwhelming evidence of harm,” says Haidt. “It happened in many countries at the same time, at a certain point in time: the moment when teenagers replaced their flip phones with smartphones. It’s like you had a murder, and all the eyewitnesses point to this suspect. There is no other explanation.”
In his latest book Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, out now, Haidt examines the connection between this “great rewiring,” in which we’ve replaced children’s playtime with phone time, and the deterioration of teenage mental health. Haidt spoke with PEOPLE for a story in this week’s issue—and offered suggestions on how to fix the problem.
Jonathan Hadit’s Anxious Generation.
Penguin Press
What is the connection between smartphones and children’s mental health? Imagine if a toy was suddenly introduced that would cause children to sleep less, exercise less, spend less time with other children. This would make them incredibly self-conscious, lower their self-confidence and cause depression and anxiety. That would be horrible, wouldn’t it? We are witnessing the loss of the game-based childhood that children have always had in favor of a phone-based childhood. Five years ago it was possible to say that the connection between mental health and smartphones was only correlational, but that is no longer true. All the evidence points to that.
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Is the problem only in smartphones? Parenting became more intense in the United States of America, but also in other English-speaking countries in the 1990s. Parents now spend a lot of time with their children, supervising them, training them, trying to prepare them for college. This may help them get into college, but it will make them less capable, confident, and happy when they get there. Play is the work of childhood. Children need to play a lot to develop their brains. And it’s best when they play without supervision. If an adult is around, the adult is likely to intervene if a conflict arises. But the conflicts are the best part. Children need conflict to develop negotiation skills.
Why is online communication inferior to real life? You give them an experience blocker. The way you communicate on social media is nothing like face-to-face. Emojis are no substitute for a real smile or laugh. And on social media, interactions are asynchronous. You say something, wait and worry: “Why didn’t she answer?” When two friends are talking in real life or on the phone, there is no anxiety; they connect. Real connection is connection, not performance. On a social platform, you perform in front of the world and there is constant social comparison.
What needs to be changed? If Congress said, “You have to be 21 to drink, but we’re going to give immunity to the alcohol industry — it’s the parents’ job to keep their kids out of bars,” that’s the situation we’re in with social media. That’s absurd. Parents can’t do that. The most important thing the government can do is raise the age limit for social media use to 16. Currently, the law says 13 years, but it is not enforced. Once kids are involved, there’s no way to be safe. Social media is brutal for kids. Requiring social media to verify age is key. If companies were responsible for damages to minor users, they would quickly solve the problem.
Jonathan Haidt
“We have protected our children too much in the real world and too little online,”
—Jonathan Haidt
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NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation.
Jayne Riew
What can be done now? Schools should be phone-free – it’s incomprehensible. Imagine if we could give children seven hours a day to free them from the need to keep up. And the internet won’t have protective fences anytime soon, so it’s the parents’ duty to delay the day when our children will have 24/7 access to the internet, at least until high school. That’s when it’s the worst. High school students do not need their own smartphone. Give them a flip phone. Children also need more independence, free play and responsibility in the real world. We don’t do them a favor by protecting them too much. Everyone is worried about the phone, but there’s a lot we have to do on the game side. I co-founded an organization called Let Grow with Lenore Skenazy, who wrote this amazing book, Free Range Kids, to encourage more of that.
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Telling your child that they can only have a flip phone can be difficult if all of your children’s friends have smartphones! Collective action is necessary, and early action is most effective. For anyone with children under 10, connect now with the parents of your children’s friends. Trust me, they care too. Coordinate—your kids won’t get phones, but they will are they will get a lot of time playing with each other. So it’s not “Let’s get rid of the phones.”
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Is it too late for kids who grew up with smartphones? It’s definitely not too late. They are still young, they can still change. I get incredible results from students in my “Blooming” class at NYU. They all have 19 plus-minus per year. Everyone is addicted to their phones. We go through exercises to help them regain control of their attention and I work a lot with them on their morning and evening routines. Once they understand what it does for them and that they must guard their attention as if it were their most precious resource, they achieve incredible results. They reduce screen time. They think they can do their homework. They don’t get interrupted all the time. So some simple lifestyle changes can bring big benefits, especially if done together, that’s the key. And there’s no one in Gen Z who says, “We need our social media, don’t take it away from us.” They say, “I wish we lived in a world without social media.” The real strength of Generation Z is that they are not in denial, they are not defensive. They see what this does to them. If we can help them find a way out of this trap, they will accept it.
For more from Jonathan Haidt, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday or subscribe here.
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Source: HIS Education