Dad, Jonathan Haidt’s six-year-old daughter said one day, can you take the iPad? I try to tear my eyes away from it, but I can’t.
When even our children realize that modern technology is causing them problems, you know it’s a problem we need to fix.
Haidt, an American academic, worries that smartphones have fundamentally changed the nature of childhood, making our children depressed and reducing their ability to function in the real world.
He thinks we need to act. Even if you don’t agree with all of its conclusions, I’d be surprised if large parts of this book don’t ring painfully true.
According to him, the problem is twofold. First, we have overprotected our offspring in the physical world, ending “play-based childhood.” Second, we have underprotected them in the online world, giving rise to a “phone-based childhood.”
Adults warned their children about having “square eyes,” first because of televisions, then because of computers. But Jonathan Haidt thinks things changed in the early 2010s, when the screen you looked at became a smartphone you could carry around with you.
All mammals learn through play. Kittens play with wool because it replaces a mouse’s tail. The turbulence of the playground is “an inoculation that prepares children to face greater challenges later.”
Just as a young tree exposed to strong winds will become stronger, “children can only learn not to hurt themselves in situations where it is possible to get hurt, such as wrestling with a friend.”
But with the rise of 24/7 news, parents started to be afraid – more than they should be. Children have never been safer and yet parents insist on pampering them. Haidt tells the story of the British woman who drove for hours behind the bus taking her son on a school trip, just to check that he had arrived safely. He reports the sign posted in a Californian school: “Football can only be played under adult supervision. »
We need to make playgrounds as safe as necessary, Haidt says, but not as safe as possible. One of the facts he cites is that there has been a reduction in the number of children hospitalized for injuries sustained while riding bikes or climbing trees.
And it’s not just about physical safety: there’s also the “psychological immune system.” Children must learn to “manage, process and overcome frustrations.” . . without falling prey to hours or days of inner turmoil.”
So what about “phone-based childhood”? For decades, adults have been warning their children about “square eyes,” first because of televisions, then computers. But Haidt thinks things changed in the early 2010s, when the screen you looked at became a smartphone you could carry around with you.
Haidt, an American academic, worries that smartphones have changed the nature of childhood, making our children depressed and reducing their ability to function in the real world.
Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation explores how smartphones have poisoned children’s brains and is an urgent warning about the toll of ‘phone-based childhoods’
In the United States, since 2010, the number of children who have suffered a major depressive episode has increased by 150 percent. Between 2010 and 2019, the suicide rate increased by almost 50% among people aged 10 to 19. Haidt says the trend is the same in other countries, including the UK.
As recently as 2007, mobile phones were just that: phones. You could send SMS messages on it, but it was tedious: to type an “s”, you had to press the “7” key four times.
Then Apple introduced the iPhone. In 2009, Facebook introduced the “like” function and Twitter the “retweet” function, allowing you to interact with content.
In 2010 the front camera for selfies arrived. Now your phone was infinitely more tempting to use – a “portal in your pocket” that “takes you away from people nearby and into an alternate universe.”
It is not a coincidence. Tech companies have designed their products to maximize their dependency. Sean Parker, an early Facebook executive, admitted in 2017 that the site used the concept of “variable reward”: if you got a like every time you checked, it wouldn’t give you as much satisfaction than being rewarded once every time. (let’s say) ten times. This is what allows you to check.
Parker and his colleagues “consciously understood this.” And we did it anyway… God only knows what it does to our children’s brains.
Social media is about quantity, not quality. This is his “great irony…the more you immerse yourself in it, the more lonely and depressed you become.” This is especially true for girls. According to a survey, one in five boys have been victims of cyberbullying, compared to just one in ten.
And even when a girl is not directly being bullied, she is plagued by doubts about her appearance and how it compares to Instagram photos that have countless filters applied to them. The reflection the girl sees in the mirror will be “less and less attractive.”
Boys tend to suffer from gaming addiction, which traps them in their rooms for days on end. Chris, a young researcher who helped develop the book, cites his own experience, saying that lacking social experiences means he “now feels like a hollow operating system”.
Of course, it’s not just about children. Many adults are also addicted and frequently check their phones during conversations. Entire families are sitting at home, staring at screens, spending time “alone together.” But adults can manage on their own. As a parent, you must look after your child. What can be done?
Haidt doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he suggests tactics like making kids wait until age 14 to get a smartphone. “But all their friends have one!” comes your answer. So perhaps copy American schools where parents sign a commitment not to issue smartphones before a certain age. Schools can also play a role by requiring students to keep their phones in their bags.
Whatever we do, it’s time to recognize that there has been a massive shift in human behavior. As Haidt says: “We are physical, embodied creatures who have evolved to use our hands, facial expressions, and head movements as channels of communication…Generation Z is learning to choose emojis instead. »
