I've read this very interesting book over the past few weeks.
Jonathan Haidt explains the impact a screen-oriented childhood has on kids and teenagers.
Figures show a big increase in mental illness, lonelyness, depression and even suicide among young adults.
Jonathan Haidt draws connections with the rise of smartphones and social media, which became commonplace around 2007-2010; the exact time when complaints among children also increased.
The graphs are bizarre. The numbers have more than doubled over the in 12 years. Jonathan claims that most of this has to do with the fact that kids spend a lot of time on screens, social media and games.

Online vs Offline

Kids spend more and more time on screens and the age they get their first smartphone is getting younger and younger. It now often starts at the age of 9/10. They spend less and less time with real interactions like playing outside and having social interaction with other kids. And it is this playing together that teaches these kids a lot about making friends and maintaining a friendship. Kids nowadays have hundreds of 'friends' on their social media accounts, but the quality is much lower than friends in real life. In real life it is much harder to make friends than online where you just send a friend request.
You have to develop skills and put effort in maintaining real life friendships, which aren't necessary for online friendships.
It is shown that the younger generations often have difficulties to make friends. Research shows that an increasing number of kids often feels lonely. A screen-oriented lifestyle is one of the causes of this.

Social Media

One of the big reasons for the increase of the mental health issues of Gen-Z are is social media. Social media platforms are often a place so see and being seen. When Facebook introduced the like button in 2009, popularity of your content could easily be measured.
The minimal age to creating a social media account is 13 years. The US government wanted to have this set to 16, but the tech industry lobby had a lot of influence, so it became 13. But although there is a minimal age, there is no check on this, so kids younger than 13 can easily create an account.
Young kids have access to all sorts of content and are target by the algorithms of the big tech companies and the advertising companies.
Young children can develop an unrealistic view of the world because of what people post on social media.
Beauty filters give an unrealistic view of how people look in real life, but it is really damaging for the self-esteem of teenagers.
Kids get caught in the algorithms which only show more of what they already look at and the algorightm will even make the content more extreme.
These platforms also removed obstacles to keep as much attention from the users of these platforms. Because the more time they spend in the app, the more they make. Things like infinite scrolling feeds (there is no end on your feed, like there is one in a book for instance) keep people doomscrolling on their phones for hours.
There are so many people that cannot withstand this, let alone young kids with an undeveloped brain.

What can we do?

Jonathan Haidt states that we need to protect our kids explains a couple of examples of how this could be achieved.
For instance, the government could increase the age for creating social media accounts (Jonathan Haidt advices to raise it to 16 years) and make sure that big tech implements ways to verify the age of their users. This way our kids cannot create accounts by themselves. They still can watch it online, for instance Youtube, but the platform won't be able to create a custom stream based on an their algorithm.
Governments also could invest in more options for kids to play outside. Make interesting playgrounds where kids can use their creativity. Nowadays you see more natural playgrounds where kids can play with sticks, stones, water and sand.

Schools could ban smartphones. In Europe we already see this implemented in some schools. The schools my kids go to have a 'at home or in the locker' policy for smartphones. Since this is implemented, kids began socializing during the breaks again.

As parents we should give the right example. We should not give our kids a smartphone at a young age and talk with other parents about it. This would help lower the pressure on parents when kids say they are the only one without a smartphone. Because we don't want our kids to be excluded, that is why we often give in to these kind of arguments.
We need to keep smartphones from bedrooms especially in the hours before bedtime and limit the total amount of hours screentime.
On the other hand we need to give them more room and opportunities to develop by giving them the responsibility to do things without supervision, like cooking, going to the supermarket, walking to school or play outside. The interactions kids are having during these activities really help them to develop.

Conclusion

The numbers presented in the book are shocking. They are based on many different researches and I do agree with the author that smartphones and social media caused a lot of problems for our kids including anxiousness, a short attention span and social deprivation.
I do thing the term 'the great rewiring of childhood' is a bit blown up. It sounds a bit like the rewiring George Orwell describes in his book 1984.
But I do agree that kids are very vulnerable and 'we' need to protect them from this. And it is important that the different actors (parents, schools, the government, big tech and the kids themselves) work together to achieve this.

The book gave me some more insights in this matter. Having to teenage kids myself that have grown up with smartphones I do see the difference with my own youth. Although I also had a computer and watched cartoons for ours I didn't had 24/7 access to internet and I also didn't had a personal algorithm that provided just the things I would like to see.
I think the times are much more difficult for parents to raise a kid as for the kids to grow up in a digital world.
I was already changing my own smartphone habits, but this book gave me some more inspiration to help my kids weaponise themselves agains the addictive effects of their smartphones and social media.

I would recommend every parent to read this book. It could really open your eyes and give you some insights in what you can do to help your kids.

Friendlymoose

I'm an amateur photographer with a love for indoor gardening, craft beer, and cycling. As the owner of the Cycling Community and the creator of the Topcomment initiative, I focus on fostering engagement and bringing like-minded people together.
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