We Don’t Have to Give In to the Smartphones
By Jonathan Haidt, Will Johnson and Zach Rausch
Why did so many parents make decisions that they regret? One major reason is that in the brief period when flip phones and other basic phones were replaced by smartphones, roughly from 2010 to 2015, there was a pervasive sense of techno-optimism. Most people were amazed by the new technology and its beneficial applications — from the mundane like hailing a car service to the profound like bringing down a dictatorship.
A common belief at the time was that being a so-called digital native would give children an advantage in the new world taking shape around us. It was only in the late 2010s that a deep unease began to arise as it became increasingly clear that children who grew up with smartphones and social media were not better adapted. In fact, they were becoming more anxious, depressed, isolated, sedentary and unable to focus.
There was an additional reason for those regretted decisions: social pressure. More than one third of parents (39 percent) who had given their child a smartphone said that they would have preferred to wait but they felt they had to give in because so many of their children’s friends already had one. For social media, the social pressure was even stronger: 54 percent of those who let their child have access to social media said they felt they had to because so many other families had already done so...
We have proposed four norms intended to help free families from the collective action trap — the feeling that they have to give in because everyone else has done so. It’s hard for any one parent or school to act alone. But when families and schools act together, change becomes possible. These norms are meant to reinforce one another, and when combined, they offer a road map for reclaiming a healthier and more joyful childhood.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/opinion/parents-smartphones-tiktok-facebook.html
https://www.pressreader.com/singapore/the-straits-times/20250622/282321095981263
https://dnyuz.com/2025/06/18/we-dont-have-to-give-in-to-the-smartphones/