Jonathan Haidt’s excellent book “The Anxious Generation” argues that the play-based childhood of our youth has been replaced with the phone-based childhood of now, and it’s not good. No bueno. Negatory, good buddy.
But there’s hope!
Haidt puts forth 4 things we can all do to get our children back (and get them some bonna fide childhoods instead of the hot garbage they’re living on TicTok.)
- No smartphones before high school.
- No social media before 16.
- Phone-free schools.
- Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.
In explaining children’s dire need for play, Haidt explains a concept I find fascinating: being “anti-fragile.”
A vase is fragile. Duh. If you drop it, it breaks.
But your immune system, for example, is ANTI-fragile. It requires exposure to germs and dirt to function properly and protect you as you age.
Children are anti-fragile.
Haidt argues that children need play to “process, and get past frustrations, minor accidents, teasing, exclusion, perceived injustices, and normal conflicts without falling prey to hours or days of inner turmoil. There is no way to live with other humans without conflicts and deprivations.”
This is why children love and need “risky” play. Climbing trees, rolling down hills, tying a rope around their sister’s neck to pretend that they’re Wonder Woman with a lasso. (Oh wait, was that just me?)
Back in my day….. or my parents’ day…..or forever going back in time, that’s what children did. They played. A lot. And mostly outside.
However, kids these days are either being bossed around by adults (soccer practice, tutoring, piano lessons) or staring at screens. Those do not facilitate the kind of “nutritious play” Haidt and other experts advocate.
Time to play!
“The Anxious Generation” suggests that our kids need “physical play, outdoors and with other children of mixed ages.” In other words, take your kids to the park and let them play tag with the other kids who are already there. Let your kids have a play date in your backyard without constantly telling them what to do.
“When parents, teachers, and coaches get involved, it becomes less free, less playful, and less beneficial. Adults usually can’t stop themselves from directing and protecting.” (So do yourself a favor; read a book on the porch and they will completely forget you are there until they need a band-aid.)
I’m guessing that you did a lot of this physical, outdoor kind of playing as a kid. Like flipping your bike over the dog and getting a sweet pair of knee scrapes. No? Again just me?
What happened to play?
But sometime in the late 1980s, parents started keeping their kids inside more due to a couple of highly-publicized kidnapping cases, a crime wave, and an increase in adult-led enrichment activities. “We decided that the real world was so full of dangers that children should not be allowed to explore it without adult supervision, even though the risks to children from crime, violence, drunk drivers, and most other sources have dropped steeply since the 1990s.” Around the same time, the internet came on the scene and kids started spending more time playing videogames, and eventually devices like iPads.
“We are overprotecting our children in the real world while under protecting them online.”
-Jonathan Haidt, “The Anxious Generation”
Unfortunately, a lot of parents think that by keeping their kids inside, they’re keeping them safe from child predators. But, “sex criminals nowadays spend most of their time in the virtual world because the internet makes it so much easier to communicate with children and to find and circulate sexual and violent videos involving children.”
Aside from access to child predators, a phone-based childhood presents four foundational harms:
- Social deprivation
- Sleep deprivation
- Attention fragmentation
- Addiction
The Anxious Generation – Battle of the sexes
“The Anxious Generation” offers some fascinating statistics on how social media and screen time have affected males and females differently, starting with the arrival of the phone-based childhood in 2010.
- “Social media harms girls more than boys. Correlational studies show that heavy users of social media have higher rates of depression and other disorders than light users or nonusers.”
- “Experimental studies show that social media use is a cause, not just a correlate, of anxiety and depression. When people are assigned to reduce or eliminate social media for three weeks or more, their mental health usually improves.”
- “Boys are at greater risk than girls of ‘failure to launch.’ They are more likely to become young adults who are ‘not in education, employment, or training.”
- “One way that smartphones, amplified by high-speed internet- have affected boys’ lives is by providing unlimited, free, hardcore pornography….. Tech companies have made it easy for boys to satisfy powerful evolved desires without having to develop any skills that would help them make the transition to adulthood.”
- “….boys and girls, who followed different paths through the Great Rewiring, ended up in the same place, with a sudden and rapid increase in the feeling that their lives were meaningless.”
The extensive information in this book shows that we have a problem. A really big problem.
But what can we do about it?
Our kids need to screen less, and play more.
“The Anxious Generation” has two entire chapters on what government, tech companies, and schools can do to turn this ship around. But the most important chapter for you is what parents can do now:
For Parents of Young Children (Ages 0 to 5)
18-24 months: screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver. One hour or less per day.
2-5 years: Limit non-educational screen time to about one hour per weekday.
Ages 6 and older: Turn off screens during family meals and outings, use parental controls, avoid using screens to stop tantrums or as babysitters, and remove screens from bedrooms 60 minutes before bedtime.
For Parents of Children Ages 6-13
No more than 2 hours per day is recommended for screen-based recreational activities.
- Practice letting your kids out of your sight without them having a way to reach you.
- Encourage sleepovers, and don’t micromanage them.
- Encourage walking to school in a group.
- After school is for free play.
- Go camping.
- Find a sleep away camp with no devices and no safetyism.
- Form child-friendly neighborhoods and playborhoods.
For Parents of Teens Ages 13-18
- Increase their mobility (let your teen independently master local buses, trains, bike trails.)
- Rely more on your teen at home (Let them run errands for you, cook, clean.)
- Encourage your teen to find a part-time job.
- Find ways for them to nurture and lead. (Babysit, be a camp counselor etc.)
- Consider a high school exchange program.
- Bigger thrills in nature. (Let your teen and her friends enjoy backpacking, swimming, hiking etc.)
- Take a gap year after high school.
I got so much out of “The Anxious Generation,” and truly hope you pick up a copy. But, if you’re knee-deep in changing diapers and stepping on Legos, I hope you’ll use the above “cheat sheet” to help you promote more play and less screen time in the lives of your children.
Beyond “The Anxious Generation”
If you’d rather listen to an interview with the author instead of reading the book (which is what I usually do while I fold laundry or wash dishes) here are two excellent options:
A Bit of Optimism – Episode 120 : The Anxious Generation with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt
Additional “Anxious Generation” resources
Anxiousgeneration.com/supplement
More good stuff!
Here’s tons of toys to entertain your kids without screens.
Forget screens! Here’s 30 ideas of things to do outside!
For more information on how to limit screen time with your kids, check out my article “Should I light my child’s iPad on fire, or grind it in the garbage disposal? Asking for a friend…”
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