We Don’t Have to Give In to the Smartphones

[MsAmerica]

We Don’t Have to Give In to the Smartphones
By Jonathan Haidt, Will Johnson, and Zach Rausch

To better understand the tensions over technology playing out in American families, we worked with the Harris Poll to conduct two surveys. As we reported last year, our survey of 1,006 members of Gen Z found that many young people feel trapped — tethered to digital products like TikTok and Snapchat. Nearly half of all participants expressed regret about having access to many of the most popular social media platforms.

Here we present the second part of our investigation: a nationally representative survey of 1,013 parents who have children under 18. The overall picture isn’t any better. We find widespread feelings of entrapment and regret. Many parents gave their children smartphones and social media access early in their lives — yet many wish that social media had never been invented, and overwhelmingly they support new social norms and policies that would protect kids from online harms.

For the whole article:
https://dnyuz.com/2025/06/18/we-dont-have-to-give-in-to-the-smartphones/

I liked my kids being able to talk to their friends

They can, in person or on a phone that isn’t a smartphone, amazingly we did it for millennia

I agree with OP. A

The amount of parents i see out or in soft play with their kids but with their faces stuffed in their phones is astonishing. But, thats on them. Thats their fault. Not societies fault.

And whats wrong with your kids talking to their friends in person?

I think if it was just friends, but it is bringing a third party influence in to your home. It’s well documented that there are hostile agencies and people who wish to manipulate your children. Whether it is their image or their view on women or society. Be really sure that a phone will add to their lives

Many Kids aren't allowed to play out independently in UK or allowed to travel alone to meet up or their friends live 8+ miles away via complicated public transport options (etc) and they may not even be in the same class(es) at school so have limited contact time with besties there.

How sweet the families who still have landlines! I suppose they have worked out how to avoid receiving constant scam phone calls on landlines.

I registered on the Telephone Preference Service and we did get the odd scam call, but "constant" is an exaggeration, @lljkk. Not all mobile phones are smartphones, so it's perfectly possible to speak to your friends without a landline or a smartphone.

My child doesn’t have an iPad and we are mindful with how much telly he watches. He’s an outdoorsy kid so we don’t leave a lot of time for tv anyway.

But parents looking at their phones in a soft play? I don’t begrudge that in the slightest. I set up at a table and listen to a podcast on headphones so I still have eyes on the soft play, but I wouldn’t judge a parent for reading something on their phone or catching up with messages while keeping an eye out.

What do you want parents to do? Soft plays are miserable for adults. That’s the children’s world, not mine. I can’t abide parents who get on the equipment themselves and lumber about like a big kid. I’ll stick to enjoying my podcasts and drowning out the general mayhem of those places and leave the chaos to the kids.

Unfortunately some do, my son would die without his smartphone!

Sorry I didn't mean to say soft play - I meant to say cafes/restaurants.

In person, you mean?
Supposedly, kids are losing the ability to converse normally.

There have been many things we did for millennia - or at least for centuries or decades - that people are unwilling to do now.

I have a landline but very few scam/spam calls.

Depending on the age of your son - don't you find that worrisome?

Bought my child the Nokia "Matrix" phone. He uses it to talk to his friends.

I'm strongly against smartphones for children.

Children can get consumed by them.

The research is clear, and the trends/links between social media and child mental health issues is enough of a red flag for me.

The brain rot on YouTube and tiktok. No thanks. Skibidy fucking toilet? Fuck off, as if that's progress.

Kids spending hours and hours EVERYDAY on their phones doing basically nothing.

Impact on their ability to sleep.

Impact on focus and motivation.

This is all before we get to the higher risk areas cyber bullying, sexting, sextortion, grooming, random paedos,. beheading videos and porn.

This would not affect younger children but there is more to smart phones than social media, at work i have to use my smart phone to log into work things, ordering food in some places, using tickets

So as children get more independence life seems to be designed more and more for smart phone use, not all children use their smart phones for social media but including my own they use it for normal life