So even while parents worked to eliminate risk and freedom in the real world, they generally, and often unknowingly, granted full independence in the virtual world, in part because most found it difficult to understand what was going on there, let alone know what to restrict or how to restrict it.
What the vast majority of parents share, despite a range of approaches and beliefs, is the desire for their children to thrive. However, Haidt points out that parents who remain uninformed about the pitfalls of the internet may unintentionally put their children at risk. For that reason, Haidt urges parents to educate themselves on how to use parental controls, to manage what content their children are exposed to, and to limit how much time children and adolescents spend online.
For most of the parents I talk to, their stories don’t center on any diagnosed mental illness. Instead, there is an underlying worry that something unnatural is going on, and that their children are missing something—really, almost everything—as their online hours accumulate.
This quote touches on the sinister nature of chronic digital overuse, which hinders social, emotional, and cognitive development. This can exacerbate issues like anxiety, depression, and poor communication skills. As Haidt writes in the introduction, the rampant use of smartphones and increased time spent online is a giant social experiment.
As the MIT professor Sherry Turkle wrote in 2015 about life with smartphones, “We are forever elsewhere.” This is a profound transformation of human consciousness and relationships, and it occurred, for American teens, between 2010 and 2015. This is the birth of the phone-based childhood. It marks the definitive end of the play-based childhood.
Here, Haidt summarizes the Great Rewiring as a shift from the play-based childhood to the phone-based childhood. This new epoch has altered the way that humans understand information and communicate and communicate with each other. However, several of Haidt's critics point out that he minimizes the positive ways that smartphones and social media have changed human life.
There is no one right way to be a parent; there is no blueprint for building a perfect child. Yet it is helpful to bear in mind some general features of human childhood: Kids are antifragile and therefore they benefit from risky play, along with a secure base, which helps to shift them over toward discover mode. A play-based childhood is more likely to do that than a phone-based childhood.
At different points throughout the book, Haidt acknowledges that there is no universal solution in terms of addressing the new phone-based childhood. That being said, he structures his advice on the foundation that children are antifragile. His background as a psychologist strengthens his ethos and lends credence to this claim.
Yet despite our differences, we all want our children to become socially competent and mentally healthy adults who are able to manage their own affairs, earn a living, and form stable romantic bonds. If we can agree on that much, then might we be able to agree on norms that lay out some of the steps on that path?
Haidt seeks to find common ground across the wide spectrum of beliefs about how best to raise children. From there, he appeals to parent's desire to raise well-adjusted individuals. Posing a question in this way frames his proposal as the logical next step. The conciliatory rhetoric contrasts with the alarmist language that critics accuse Haidt of using elsewhere in the book.
I’m not saying that 11-year-olds should be kept off the internet. I’m saying that the Great Rewiring of Childhood, in which the phone-based childhood replaced the play-based childhood, is the major cause of the international epidemic of adolescent mental illness. We need to be careful about which kids have access to which products, at which ages, and on which devices. Unfettered access to everything, everywhere, at any age has been a disaster, even if there are a few benefits.
Haidt acknowledges a counterargument when he states that there are indeed some benefits to social media. However, he maintains the assertion that the Great Rewiring of Childhood is responsible for the rising trends in adolescent mental illness. In the last sentence, Haidt likely finds common ground with his critics by arguing in favor of a balanced approach to allowing children to use the internet.
Why, then, did boys’ mental health get worse in the 2010s, just as they attained unfettered access to everything, everywhere, all the time, for free? Maybe it’s because it’s not healthy for any human being to have unfettered access to everything, everywhere, all the time, for free.
Haidt analyzes internet overuse by making a general moral claim that a lack of limits harms human health. This suggests that there are rational, biological, or psychological reasons to restrict internet access, perhaps even for adults. After all, Haidt writes elsewhere that parents should model a balanced relationship with their smartphones and social media.
When considering transit, zoning laws, permits, and new construction, remember that kids are human beings. They want to be where the action is. Easily accessible mixed-use spaces where everyone, young and old, can hang out, see, be seen, do some playing, shopping, eating, flirting, and, when tired, bench sitting make everyone more engaged with the world beyond the screen.
Built environment design can foster intergenerational relationships, which benefit everyone. This quote humanizes both children and the elderly by reminding readers of their social needs. Intergenerational relationships also help create stronger, more compassionate, and resilient communities.
During the summer of 2014, when the South Carolina single mom Debra Harrell worked her shifts at McDonald’s, she brought along her daughter, who was on vacation from school. Regina, age 9, spent the time playing on a laptop. But when the laptop was stolen from their home, Regina begged her mom to let her play at the neighborhood’s popular sprinkler park instead. She’d be surrounded by friends and many of their parents. It felt safe. It felt like summer. Debra said yes. But on Regina’s third day of fun in the sun, a woman at the park asked her where her mom was. When she said, “Working,” the woman called 911. The police charged Debra with child abandonment—which carries up to a 10-year sentence—and threw her in jail. Regina was taken away from her mom for 17 days.
This quote describes the criminalization of working-class mothers, particularly mothers of color. Stories such as these often capture media and public attention. According to Haidt, the rising fears about crime and abduction in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s led parents to restrict children's independence. Not allowing children outside to play, walk, and bike unsupervised has led to a culture of safetyism. He argues in favor of shifting the social norm back to when children had more independence.
Studies show that lower-income, Black, and Latino children put in more screen time and have less supervision of their electronic lives, on average, than children from wealthy families and white families. (Across the board, children in single-parent households have more unsupervised screentime). This suggests that smartphones are exacerbating educational inequality by both social class and race.
Haidt acknowledges race and class differences when it comes to digital use, which indicates that these populations are most impacted by the harmful effects of excessive screen time. Living in a screen-saturated world makes it harder for parents to impose limits, particularly if they have to work many hours outside the home. Haidt and other writers focus on how the digital gap between different communities is actually the opposite of what might be expected (Bowles).
