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Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

321–330 of 420 posts

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But these things aren’t smartphones’ fault per se, if you remove toxic social media from the equation most of these problems go away.

Do they? You still have a little dopamine generator in every kids pocket, just waiting for another app that's not technically social media. Conversely social media without constant access through mobiles would be far safer.

Mobile games are worse than my old Gameboy's. The controls are just bad. In all games. Hell, old button phones had better games.

It is the microtransactions that are bad for mental health I guess. It is not that the games are good.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#322
I'm not sure if someone has already posted this here, but Cal Newport had a nice presentation summarizing what we know about the effects of social media usage on children.

https://youtu.be/VN5lrKMeAOs

I showed this to my teenaged daughter and while she was irritated, she reluctantly agreed that it made sense.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#323
post #146

OP here. Parent of 3, ages 12, 15 and 18 navigating this issue irl. Although I believe good parents aren't super rigid on any issue, I feel pretty strongly on this one. It's the parents responsibility and it's hard since it requires your good example. No phone, age 0 to 10-12, to the Lightphone (absolutely love this product) age 13 to 16-18, to a smart phone. I believe the progression is pushed off as long as possibl…

I'd love to hear more on how this has been working out for you and your kids. Do they seem to grasp why you have these rules in place? Was there any pushback from their side? Did they ever complain about being left out of social circles because of these rules? I'm not a parent, but this seems an awfully important issue to get right when it comes to children.

Not OP, but I'll chime in. For us, Islam plays a central role in how we conduct our lives and affairs. While our children are younger than OP's, they already grasp why we do certain things, and why we don't necessarily follow what everyone else does, even though it may appear to be fun at first glance. And if everyone else is jumping off of a bridge, if doesn't make sense for us to follow blindly does it?

We also amend with family and community interaction as much as we can, as well as constantly engaging with them and teaching them that they can trust us in anything that is on their mind. Bringing up how we were raised seems to also aid (e.g. we show them kids shows that we grew up with, we mention that we didn't have cell phones as children, talk about our parents and grandparents times, etc.). I see some parents leaving their kids to watch whatever they want on youtube, and it's quite astonishing what garbage they watch. We pick and choose what shows and programs they're allowed to watch, again, mainly relying on shows we have already seen as children and which instill good values. Thankfully many of them can be found online. And modern incarnations of certain shows are treated as suspicious until proven innocent after what we're seeing them do.

Of course having peers of similar values is also very important, which is why school choice plays a big role, and public school is off the table (though I know not everyone can do the same, but it does not change the fact that it is a huge factor).

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphone = pushy social media in your pocket 24x7. In practice I suspect that amongst highschoolers the ratio of time spent between wikipedia and social media (and gaming as well) heavily favors the latter.

Like I said: > It's possible to set up a child's smartphone in such a way that their access to social media is limited if not totally removed. The problem is parents who don't care enough to get actively involved in their child's lives to this extent.

> It's possible to set up a child's smartphone in such a way that their access to social media is limited if not totally removed.

You clearly don't know my kids.

> The problem is parents who don't care enough to get actively involved in their child's lives to this extent.

That's a borderline insulting statement and not fit for HN.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I’m seeing a very clear division in parenting style among my peers. Some parents allow screen time with moderation and caution because they know what excessive use leads to. The other group sees nothing wrong and screens are everywhere all the time. My friend circles are exclusively in the first group, from daycare to schools to friends. So much so that at first I thought everyone was like this. Then I s…

Smartphones and social media are tools. Drugs are tools. Both can be used or abused.

For sure, but I don't think it's a 'level playing field' when the multivitamin you give to your kid is laced with fentanyl!

Darkpatterns, for example, are specifically designed to exploit holes in our psychological armor.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they won't be able to follow the courses because all of the data required for homework/tests etc is only available in some stupid app. And no, they don't issue the phones (obviously...). Though they probably should since it is their requirement.

Wild. Is this a US public school? Just wondering if I should file this away in the very large folder of "WTF are we doing with primary education in this country?"

Dutch high school.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they won't be able to follow the courses because all of the data required for homework/tests etc is only available in some stupid app. And no, they don't issue the phones (obviously...). Though they probably should since it is their requirement.

My kids' schools always issued a tablet or laptop for online courseware. It was not optional, you got a device locked down and pre-configured with the software the school was using.

That would be acceptable.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#328
post #45

There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…

> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…

>It's possible to use a smartphone without social media. It's possible to set up a child's smartphone in such a way that their access to social media is limited if not totally removed.

I would argue that it's very hard to limit access to the web versions of social media outlets.

I would also first broaden our terms a little, as it's not just social media that's so harmful, it's the wider attention economy. If we include that, it is practically impossible to own a smartphone without misusing it to your personal detriment.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#329
post #45

There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…

> Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why

Confounding factor: think about the type of parents who choose not to give their children smartphones. Are they more or less likely to be engaged in other aspects of the childs life that promotes good outcomes compared to the average? How about other things like diet, hobbies, income, waking hours spent in the home? Could those potentially affect mental health in adulthood?

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#330
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's really no data on that I find it extremely unlikely that there's no data on how being an outcast affects one's mental health

That's not the question, is it? You just jump to the conclusion that a child without a mobile phone becomes an outcast, and equate that to the classical outcast picture.

It's not a huge leap to think that someone that abstains from such a crucial piece of social lubrication will be an outcast.
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