Together, parents can do better

Do we really need more science to do what's obviously good for our kids?

I have to admit I was surprised by the intensity of the debate triggered by Jon Haidt’s bestselling book on teenage mental health and social media. The statistics are clear — mental health issues in teens — especially girls — have risen significantly. Haidt’s review of the research on the connection to smartphones and social media is both deep and incredibly wide. He has found (and pinpointed) plenty of indicators that there is a significant link, and then goes on to propose some very commonsense mitigations.

And yet some critics treat him like a hysterical anti-technologist who is coming for your kids’ inalienable right to participate in the attention economy.

I can’t quite work out what the agenda is of those trying so hard to discredit his conclusions. Are they paid by Meta? By Marjorie Taylor Greene? The Chinese Communist Party? It makes no sense.

Let’s look at Haidt’s thesis, the criticisms and dispel some myths. He tracks the decline of ‘play-based’ childhood starting in the 1980s and how it turned into a screen-based experience for most kids & teens by the 2010s. In parallel, he notes how the the spike in anxiety, depression, self-harm among teens parallels changes in how they grew up and how they are parented. He looks at various countries (with different rates of smartphone/social media adoption) to further evidence the correlation. To be clear, he does not blame technology for all that ails our teens — just as critical has been the shift in parenting styles (partly driven by crime fears in the 1980s) that reduced kids’ independence and dramatically curtailed their unsupervised playtime.

It’s a perfect storm and the correlation seems indisputable. Also commonsensical and — to any parent who has seen their child crumple into their devices for hours on end — blindingly obvious. Heck, even the kids agree! And yet, the critics have pounced. They claim teen mental health is a nuanced problem that can’t be reduced to a simple diagnosis (true). They say that a number of in-depth studies on the link between smartphone/social media use and mental health could not prove causation (debatable). Some suggest this outcry is no different than the moral panic around the advent of radio, television, internet, etc, which all proved absurd in hindsight.

The causation vs correlation debate seems particularly misguided. Smartphones and social media are products, and in our society products are subject to safety regulations. Sometimes those regulations are based on highly rigorous scientific research, but more often than not government has acted based on a preponderance of correlation evidence, not definitive causation. This was true for the initial regulation of tobacco, of asbestos, of lead in paint, and for the requirement for seat belts in cars. Why should the standard of proof be higher in this case?

Thankfully Haidt is no pop psychologist, and no pushover. He’s done his research and showed his work. He is engaging in the debate and standing his ground. In many ways, I wish he didn’t have to. It would be so much better to focus the discussion on the most important part of the book: his recommendations.

His calls for action are simple but require communities to step up — ban phones in schools; don’t give smartphones to teens before high school; delay social media until 16; and give kids more independence and responsibility in the physical world.

The first one is obvious and (relatively) easy; in fact, many schools already ban phones in class, but have long ago lost the ability to enforce it. Now we see individual schools going all the way (and some cases whole countries), with initial results that are extremely encouraging (and contribute to the experimental data on causation).

The middle two recommendations are hardest — they could in theory be legislated (and numerous states are trying, but running headlong into constitutional roadblocks and hyper-polarised politics) and so rely on parents to do the hard thing. As anyone raising teens knows, it’s not so simple to hold back smartphones and social media — in the absence of community-wide collaboration, a ban on access is tantamount to forced social exclusion.

But communities of parents can band together. When my eldest was in 7th grade, we got nearly all the parents to agree to provide only a basic phone for the walk to school rather than a pocket supercomputer. It worked, for a year. This idea is catching on — campaigns like Wait until 8th are encouraging (though perhaps not ambitious enough, 9th grade would be better). Perhaps most impactful is the emerging evidence that teens themselves — once they get over the initial withdrawal — report feeling better when they don’t have their phones.

Even if you don’t agree with Haidt’s science, the proposed solutions could hardly be counterproductive. More socialising in person? Less FOMO? Better concentration in school? Less exposure to body shaming posts? A few hours saved from TikTok’s attention-sucking algorithm?

What’s the worst that could happen? If Haidt is wrong, we’re all better off with a bit more physical play and less screen addiction and social media anxiety. If he’s right, we could be saving the next generation.