My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

This exactly. That she's returning home from school at 6:30! The author didn't give their daughter's age, but we can assume it's right before 14, so maybe 12-13. I'm in high school, and I take a couple HL IB classes, school always gets out for me at 3, and then I do cross country until 5. That is already a long day. Then I go home, eat, do homework, and depending on the workload it could be anywhere between 8:00-12:00. Finally I'm able to go to bed, and redo the whole thing. I am a high schooler, and I'm taking high level classes for credits in college. The author's daughter is probably a middle schooler.

The issue is the daughter doesn't have time to be creative. I program, edit videos, etc., but all of that I have to save for the weekends. The daughter probably doesn't have the energy to be creative and just uses their phone during some downtime.

With my generation we are not always on our phones like many would believe. Pre-covid we would gather and talk after school, during lunch, in class. If I went with my friends to lunch it is acceptable to check your phone but we would never find it acceptable to be on your phone the whole time.

The issue is probably not the daughter, but the workload.

I find it hard to think this is not causation.

I had a habit opening LinkedIn every now and then to glance at the content. Sometimes I would quickly close, sometimes I read a bit and close, sometimes longer.. anyway that's a distraction from whatever I am doing.

I did a small experiment recently on LinkedIn. I unfollowed everyone. My LinkedIn feed is empty. I don't open LinkedIn as much now, think about it.. it faded away.

I really like having no feed.

Then I wondered what Facebook would be like without a Feed.

It is my store too as a parent of a single child losing creativity to instant pleasures and doom scrolling on an iPhone.

To add salt to injury, the dance team at school she is part of encourages them to post on Facebook and Instagram. They have study groups on Facebook, Discord, Slack and even Instagram.

When I demand they use simple old style text messaging, she has friends with fancy phones but no SIM card and depend on Instagram messaging for everything.

I have given up after going through frustrating, helpless and endless hours of convincing.

Lack of ability to focus will be the serious limiting factor for innovation and creativity. I see it at work where you get engineers cannot persevere to solve hard problems. Agile has become them excuse to do some quick hack and throw it across the wall.

Your assertion that only families among "the wealthiest in the world" have non-school childcare arrangements is incorrect.

I agree that everyone should have access to better child-rearing opportunities than are offered by school, especially public school in North America. I'd love to see homework eliminated, more time in school devoted to play, more tracking & opportunities for everyone to develop their strengths (be they calculus or auto mechanics), and the elimination of compulsory secondary schooling (let the kids come who want to come & make it rewarding enough that they do, rather than threatening to jail their parents to bring them to heel).

I am ignoring the aspects of your comment directed towards me personally.

> Social pressure to be connected constantly increases for children below 14 years.

This is absolutely a problem, but I don't think it's a problem that can be solved at an individual level, and denying this privilege to your child would IMO do more harm than good as they'd miss out on social events or provide a reason for bullying, etc.

Withdrawing from social media and the bullshit rat race of the "attention economy" is absolutely the right thing to do, but it has to be a voluntary decision.

I don't have a link to it but I remember reading an article which was saying something alone the lines of everyone having a limited amount of "weirdness points" and that we must spend them wisely. In today's society, being isolated from social media is a "weirdness point" (whether we like it or not) and it's up to each individual to determine whether it is worth for them to take the hit.

I have withdrawn from social media as an adult because I am at a stage in life where I don't have to prove anything to anyone, don't have to be "cool" kid and have other ways to play the "status game". However for a typical teenager social media popularity and the "cool" factor is probably their biggest assets when it comes to status and I don't think it's fair to be putting them at a disadvantage by denying them access to it.