I find Dr. Gray's views to be a welcome counterbalance to the important work of Haidt and others, but the line of argument in this particular article strikes me as reductive and incomplete. "We've seen this all before" arguments may inject some valuable context into a heated debate, but they also risk obscuring Black Swan events and the dangers they carry. The movies of the early 20th century did not come home with you in your pocket, nor did they optimize themselves for addictive behavior. Movie producers were indeed interested in selling tickets, but they also had to cater to a relatively broad audience, and many were interested in producing a work of art with enduring social relevance. Early comic books often conveyed moral values and served as a stepping stone to more serious reading (this was certainly the case for me). Even video games offer some benefits in problem-solving and coordination, as others have noted.
I fail to find any of these redeeming benefits in TikTok, and I see plenty of harm. If the goal of modern psychologists is to debate which social media meets the technical definition of addictive behavior, or whether the connection between body dysmorphia and these platforms is statistically significant, I would argue that this matters little to parents who *see* their children suffering from these technologies. Perhaps one of the most valuable qualities of the parent-child relationship is the parent's ability to intuitively and holistically monitor their child's well-being. A teenager might self-report that their increasing anxiety is due to school pressures, not their phone, but a parent will notice how much more resiliently and enthusiastically their child navigated life before they began scrolling for six hours a day.
Dr. Gray has argued cogently for a less intensive approach to parenting and a greater degree of self-determination for our children. I resonate with these ideals strongly, but they presuppose a world in which children have the opportunity to explore, play, and at least momentarily step away from the societal judgments and rampant consumerism that we have erected around them. I believe that social media robs them of this opporunity in a way that no other technology ever has. It is not more of the same.
Certainly, but when they did find time to play, they didn't have to contend with an electronic anchor in their pockets, dragging them back. There's a famous parable about a prison whose door is left unlocked one day, and all of the prisoners escape except for one, because he was born in the prison and has no concept of freedom. That's the difference in kind that I'm talking about. Prior generations were deprived play and yearned for it all the more, taking it where they could get it. But the current generation has selfies to upload and likes to count.
My Baby Boom generation also was accused of confronting censored, seductive media content leaving us overwhelmed, unprotected. Warranting increased censorship, oppression....
Social media is certainly worlds away from comics, film, and TV - they’re not at all the same - but just because it has risks doesn’t mean there are no benefits. I see TikTok frequently singled out as problematic, but it’s really no different from any other app with video front and centre (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook) as far as its content being potentially harmful. But social media apps are not wholly harmful content, nor are they used exclusively for entertainment and corporate advertising. Rather, they are often used for education, activism, and community organizing (all worthwhile and illuminating endeavours that serve as jumping off points for deeper exploration and real world action). For example, many global struggles and injustices have been illuminated by TikTok, many hobbies have been kickstarted by Instagram, many experiments have been inspired by YouTube, and many protests have been organized on all of them.
In a world where producers and publishers curate news and information, these apps are the video versions of substack and medium - giving voice and choice to everyone, and allowing people to hear voices they wouldn’t otherwise. Granted, some of those voices are hateful and/or harmful (misinformation runs rampant, predators lurk, and consumerism abounds), but many of the voices are earnest, educational, and helpful; this is why it’s important for parents to be involved and connected to their kids and what they’re consuming online (not just on social media). Banning social media altogether - whether the government does that or parents do - isn’t the answer, it will just create scarcity and the opportunity for other things to fill the void.
While I hate sitting through a video when I just want to skim something, my homeschooled son thrives on video content for learning. He’s found many wonderful educational content creators to learn from (as well as gaming and cat videos). No matter what video app he’s using, I’m supervising and aware of what he’s consuming, helping him think critically about what he sees. I’m teaching him how to spot conspiracy theories, how to fact check claims, how to detect subtle advertising, how to avoid being scammed, and how to engage with comments and/or messages. The opportunities to learn are endless, but because of the concerns brought up by Haidt, Skenazy, and others regarding smart phones and social media, it’s crucial that kids aren’t left to navigate social media alone - they need boundaries and adult guidance.
More than ever, we need to give our kids the support, tools, and skills required to navigate these digital worlds so that they don’t fall prey to predators, schemes, misinformation, and vapid consumerism (as many adults and kids do). I certainly won’t allow my son to have his own social media accounts until he’s much older, his access to them through my accounts is limited and supervised, but I am establishing a relationship to social media that is thoughtful, intentional, and aware. My elementary aged son has access to an iPad but I utilize passcode protected screen time tools to ensure he only gets access to apps I approve and monitor. He does not have his own social media accounts nor does he engage with social media without my participation/supervision. I have boundaries around online time whether it’s watching videos or playing video games and I also engage in these activities with him, teaching him skills, and helping him understand risks - because I myself am not always aware of time when consuming social media, or readily aware of its impact on my mental health, so I know that my child can’t possibly manage that on his own without coaching and boundaries. That said, my partner and I also work hard to balance his time on screens with time spent doing other things (playing outside, making things, reading, playing board games, participating in sports, etc). I do my very best to let my child lead and I support his interests, but I also teach him moderation, balance, and the importance of connection.
The problem with social media, I think, is that it’s not regulated - it’s designed to benefit the owners and advertisers, not the users. Government regulation, not government bans, are the solution. Regulation would require companies to create stronger protections against predators and hate as well as better controls and abilities for users, especially child/guardian managed accounts. Right now, the only options for kids are YouTube Kids - which is poorly designed, has poor quality content, and blocks a lot of content unnecessarily - and Facebook Messenger Kids - which is a messaging app with games in it (and no ability to turn those off). Though many kids are on other apps not specifically designed for them.
What I’d like to see is all social media apps requiring age and identity verification for full access under 18, and ideally have guardian accounts for those under 18. A guardian account would manage under 18 accounts with the ability to turn off features like shorts, video suggestions, ads, and messaging as well as the ability to block accounts (can’t do this on YouTube currently), set time limits/schedules for use, and utilize effective filters for preferences (which would include inappropriate/undesirable content). The app Epic Books comes to mind - from my parent dashboard, I can create child profiles where I set ages and I can turn features on and off. Alternatively, social media companies could create modified/limited “under 18” accounts with set features, but I think the guardian accounts with the options to customize for your kid(s) based on age/ability/maturity, etc would work best and make it easier to introduce kids to social media safely in addition to improving experiences for kids whose parents do hand them phones without any boundaries (as certainly happens now).
Ultimately, I think an all or nothing approach fails to recognize the benefits of this tech and why kids are so drawn to it. The answer, right now given there’s no regulation, is boundaries, balance, and building skills.
My impression is that Tic Tok pushes viciously harmful content; that its technology per se not what we should target. I agree Tic Tok should be outlawed, as Pres Biden has proposed. Dr. Gray's compelling point to me, among others, is we've had "the sky is falling" with successive generations about the purported harmful impact of new communication technology--on kids especially. I view this as underscoring the need for productive parenting and societies that facilitate this. Orgs like Let Grow. And acknowledging that communication technology will continue advancing. Necessary to master constructively during productive upbringings like so much else. My nerve disease leaves me unable to access much via the internet--robbing me of many basic services: including procuring med. care, medications.
I think what's missing from this point is that there are some parents (like myself) who did have smartphones and social media in their teenage years and don't want that for their kids. We're not just saying it because we're scared of this new technology, we're saying it because we know how destructive this technology can be.
I am lucky enough to live in an area where my children can play outside with plenty of other kids around. What I’ve noticed is that the kids all play and explore happily until around the age they get a phone (about 10) and then you don’t see them anymore. Or you do still see them occasionally but they are sitting next to one another outside staring at their individual phones. It always seems a shame as they’d surely still be playing, exploring and chatting if they didn’t have a smartphone to divert them.
I just had a chat with my brother-in-law about this, who, just like me, is all about letting kids have more freedom and unsupervised play outdoors. Him and my sister live close to a playground where they let their kids (5 and 8) go play with other kids from the neighborhood without adult supervision, but he can see the playground from his window. He tells me it's always the same scenario: the kids play until someone comes along who's got a smartphone and then they all stop their play and gather around that one to see the screen for the rest of the afternoon. I don't understand how Dr Gray is so insisting about this social media and can't seem to concede not even 1% that tiktok and the likes were programmed to keep you addicted as much as possible, that's not even disputed nowadays, it really puzzles me and i would love to be able to grasp his actual thought process and understand what makes him so adamant against any criticism of social media
I am sorry but, echoing David Campbell et. al., I really disagree with your premise that social media (not smart phones alone) are just like all the other moral panics of the past.
1) Most of the items on your list are written words so you had to engage your mind to appreciate them. You learned to concentrate and remember complex plots and ideas.
2) TikTok most egregiously, but most apps kids gravitate towards are algorithmically designed with psychological insights taken from the casino business model with timed dopamine hits designed to addict you to simple acts that pay off immediately. No effort is required with the ad and the programming become one in the same.
I find it notable that China’s version of TikTok is time limited and full of mostly educational videos. And yes CCP propaganda too but it is not an infinite scroll of outrage, stupidity, and vacuous attention span shortening ‘entertainment’.
Even Television at its worst was not as addictive. The ads interrupted what you wanted to see on a regular basis. And television programs had an ending allowing for disengagement. Plus parents could step in and forbid the child access after bed time. Now too many kids sleep with their phones and are on them as soon as they are awake.
This time the panic is (for too many kids) fully justified. Attention spans are being shortened and concentration is being stunted. Yes there are many kids that can and do use social media to productive ends. But the number of kids being harmed is growing.
Especially at younger ages when their brains are being ‘wired’ we need to forbid access to that which impairs development of a thoughtful human being. That is why we want free play, is it not?
Technology shapes the brain. It is true of all technology from, language to reading to smartphones with TikTok. For me, the question is: what environment do I want to shape my brain?
I hold no personal judgment towards a persons preferences and curiosities - horror comics or TikTok or spending hours lying in the grass staring at the sky. But these activities do have different impacts on the shape of the brain that have further implications for how each person experiences the world.
My teens have been unschooled their whole lives, and though they have had open access to tech, I have had conversations with them in which I discouraged certain choices.
Today they spend their time doing a wide range of activities - and often need to remind me to get off my phone!
I think that this explanation of “moral panic” may be overblown. Yes kids glom onto these distractions but I think when you say that the adults are “foisting” things on kids you dismiss that they are really just trying to teach moderation. There are other things in life that are suffering because of the almost complete attention they give to one thing, which in this case is social media.
It is important to equalize time spent on other life activities like chores, spirituality, face-to-face interaction with friends and family, and helping in the community in some way. Some things are just more impactful when done as a caring human being without technology. As a school board member I believe that phones in schools are as inappropriate as if boomers would have brought a television to school in their day. Both are, in my opinion, a major distraction to learning the skills needed in the real world.
To your point, “ Data that contradict the stories must be wrong (I’ve heard that from a few readers in response to my critiques of the latest panic),” I am concerned that (with lots of respect) that you are not applying this principle conversely. There is plenty of evidence for the harm of social media, and it is simplistic to brush it all aside because it doesn’t fit the narrative. In this case, just because the data contradicts the story (eg kids know what is good for them) doesn’t make the data wrong.
It’s also entirely possible that other technologies that people have panicked about turn out to be relatively benign (eg comic books). It doesn’t naturally follow that that this pattern is therefore inevitable for social media. Maybe modern technology is really different, and like nothing the world has ever dealt with before, and it could be uniquely harmful.
I also think that the “no smartphone for kids” movement is not as simplistic as you think. Jonathan Haidt, for instance, is a big proponent of giving kids more offline freedom and play (he quotes your work on the importance of play in his book). It’s not just taking phones away, it’s replacing them with the play and social experiences that humans are designed to have.
Very interested to read this, which was forwarded by my daughter. I can’t speak for the Victorians or the early 20th Century, but as a consumer of media from the 1940s on, in the UK, I can share my experiences since then.
When I was a small child and my brother even smaller, we were allowed one ‘comic’ per week, paid for by my parents. I was given a comic called Chicks’ Own, while my brother received Tiny Tots. I have little recollection of this literature but I am sure it was anodyne and completely harmless, They were delivered weekly along with my parents’ Daily Telegraph. Apparently they are fetching about £30 a copy on Ebay, having cost little more than today’s 1p.
We were not allowed The Beano or Dandy – my mother said they were vulgar. Which led to much perusing of these terrible items at the barbers while my brothers had their hair cut.
After much asking, we were allowed to graduate to School Friend and Tiger respectively (probably some time after most of our contemporaries!). Tiger’s most popular strip was Roy of the Rovers, focussing on soccer. School Friend featured boarding school adventures on the front page, and also included equestrian offerings. Later it amalgamated with its sister comic Girls’ Crystal.
We were not allowed Girl or Eagle, companion papers with better colour and paper, perhaps because they were more expensive – but there may have been objections to content in addition.
But my strongest, and bitter, memory of comics derives from when I was about 8, so probably late 1940s or early 1950s I had a friend in primary school who lent me a couple of comics which she had borrowed from her teenaged brother (he was forbidden by their parents from letting her read them). They offered tales of unpleasant supernatural experiences – I forget the titles (‘Tales of the Supernatural’ comes to mind but may not be accurate). I was a prosaic realistic child with a stronger sense of the difference between fact and fiction than I have now. I don’t believe they did me any harm although I retain one image still, which may say otherwise. I did not realise that my parents might have a problem with these items, but they must have confiscated them, and I was accosted in school by my friend who informed me that my father had written to hers, enclosing the comics and presumably complaining. Her brother was in trouble, and the child was forbidden by her parents from coming to Sunday School with me. I lost a friend – one of whom I suspect my parents disapproved because of social class difference – with whom I had enjoyed various illicit practices such as rowing on the local boating lake when we were under age (she had taught me to row) and stealing small amounts of money from our parents to buy fruit and pay for the rowing. But she was my only friend at the time and the loss was painful.
My criticism of Jonathan Haidt's Phone Ban Crusade is two-fold: (1) it distracts resources and attention from addressing the very real factors underlying the challenges to the mental well-being of today's younger generations (anxiety, depression, lack of agency and resilience) and (2) pretends to present an easy, too-attractive solution by banning phones in schools, a solution that will prove to be irrelevant and ineffective.
Peter and others, including Professor Haidt, have rightly pointed out for years how the decline in free-play has contributed to and driven the decline in mental health in children, but taking phones away from young humans will not magically cause them to go outside and play with other kids — there are no kids to play with! Jonathan Haidt's childhood of neighborhoods full of four- and five-children homes with kids ready to play pickup baseball and four-square has been replaced with single- and two-child households thanks to contraception, and even those kids are unavailable since they have been impressed into adult-supervised sports and school extracurriculars.
The Phone Ban Crusade so facilely popular with teachers and politicians might rip phones out of kids' hands, but it won't bring back free-play, as Jonathan Haidt predicts — declining fertility rates and Freddie deBoer's "Cult of Smart" preclude that.
Is it possible that it isn't just disappearing neighborhoods that have killed free-play and its benefits, but that declining fertility has significantly eliminated that community that first provided the greatest opportunity for developing skills at negotiation and resilience and agency — the three- and four-sibling household, our first "neighborhood"?
I think the backlash against social media is less moral panic and more akin to concerns about smoking (or more recently vaping). In both situations you have companies peddling an addictive substance and intentionally trying to hook users at a young age, and in both situations there definite problems with the use (or over-use) of the substance. For a recent example, see the Jan 9 post on the After Babel Substack detailing the findings from an improperly redacted legal brief on TikTok's operating practices. This sort of bad behavior on the part of social media companies has been around for a long time though - I was going to talks a decade ago at a well-known academic institution in Silicon Valley about techniques for testing what content is more engaging to users and profiling accounts.
I think I agree with Peter that we may want to focus more on providing free play and agency to children and not just take smart phones away only to keep children on track to improve their test scores. I also agree that Haidt's conclusions can be met with a healthy dose of academic skepticism. However, I do disagree with a laissez faire approach to children and social media, since the reality is that the dominant forms of it are not working for the user, but against them. I am not a Luddite - I make a living working with computers, and have some hope for a better future for the internet. But as a Millennial who came of age with social media the only thing I can say about it is the less of it is in my life and the life of those around me, the better off I am (and unfortunately this still applies to the what I currently allow myself, Substack and Hacker News, since they will still distract me more than I would like).
I would LOVE to see you talk to DrK from Healthy Gamer. I actually read his book "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer" because gaming addiction is a thing, but its not well understood and gaming is not always appreciated for what it does for people.
One of the things I love about capitalism, got to give the devil his due, was how Star Trek opened the gates to nerdery as a profitable endeavor with fandom being sufficient to support conventions and stuff like that. We live in a consumerist age, and I don't deny or make apology for identifying with stuff I own or play with. I even have some lazy cosplay outfits I wear to nerd conventions.
I hope we are growing to be less afraid of the future. It feels like hard won progress has been happening, but probably future progress will also be hard too.
This feels as reductive as the folks saying phones are bad. Look deeper at what each of these were about. Parents and teachers were noticing something very real - media that came in without the control of the adult caregivers and disrupted the attachment between the caregivers and children, and showed them a seductive vision of the world where they didnt have to fulfill their responsibilities or listen to grownups, or worse, learning age-inaoppropriate knowledge from dangerous sources.
We don't anymore worry about older media because we controlled and regulated them in many ways and with wider acceptance, the most common material became family-oriented. I don't think a parent who comes across their 10 year old reading dinosaur porn fiction (there are a ton available on Amazon for a dollar) is going to be okay with that because it is "improving literacy" or providing them knowledge about dinosaur anatomy. Porn websites were early adopters of cutting edge technologies, no one dreams of their children using or working on these sites.
The danger now also is phones can put kids directly in contact with predators with parents having no idea. Underprivileged children spend a lot of time playing on roblox in the library. Their parents think they are safe. But roblox doesn't have the best track record on child safety. Is it unjustified to panic about stuff like this?
The problem is when parents don't talk to their kids about these things and don't have a relationship with their kids. Some people would far sooner tune into fear mongering media rather than have an uncomfortable conversation with their kid.
It's really hard to talk to kids about stuff they have a grip on but you don't. You just sound old and out of touch and they underestimate the risks and besides, all the kids are doing it. It's easy for me to talk about TV because I've spent a lot of time on it. And phones too I guess because I am used to internet addiction. But these social gaming sites when no kids do much IRL? That's not a world I'm familiar with or know to navigate and I'd just rather no one is exposed to roblox chat.
The answer is to ask kids about it and have them explain it to you. And that's not even my answer, that's pretty much DrK's advice in "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer"
You do great service to youth rights and child liberation with this essay, although I'm a little disappointed to see you speculate idly on the harms of television even as you warn against idle speculation on the harms of other media. Physician, heal thyself!
I want you to know, that my kids actually asked us for limited screen time. It was obvious to them when they went overboard, and they wanted help limiting their use
OK, that makes sense. People may ask for help when their willpower is weak, as when Odysseus relied on his crewmen to keep him safe from the deadly song of the sirens. But I don't think that it validates any of the moral panics.
Here in the Netherlands, smartphones and other devices have recently been banned in all schools (primary and secondary education). On the basis of, in my view, poorly substantiated and implemented research, the statement is that they would negatively affect learning performance and concentration. Although I understand that some people look with suspicion at the intensive use of smartphones and the amount of time children spend on them, I have doubts about this ban. Aren't we making schools even more places that children mainly experience as alienating? Isn't it our job to prepare them for the world of tomorrow? In the whole discussion about this, I missed a nuanced dissenting voice like that of Peter Gray!
I agree! I think the school phone bans are especially troubling because the world outside schools is still full of phones, so how are kids being prepared to actually live in the world if they're in an environment where they can't learn responsible phone use?
There is no responsible phone use for a teenager! School should be a place of learning, a place without the distraction of the phone. At least for a few hours a day. I’ve taught in high schools, kids are shopping on Amazon, watching porn (yes), checking social media and playing video games. It is a joke. It is sad, it’s a disaster in my opinion. These kids are not being prepared for the real world sadly.
Zoe - kids are in school about 6 hours a day, 175ish days a year, give or take. They spend the vast majority of their time "in the world". Let them learn internet, or smartphone under the guidance of their parents and community. When they are in school, let's have them learning academics, as well as practicing social skills in a distraction free environment.
Besides all that, the argument of "well, they're going to have to learn responsible phone use at some point" has been the default policy. It's not worked out very well, so rather than say "hey there is a problem here, let's keep trying the same thing that hasn't worked", maybe we can try something different?
As a parent it’s my job to make sure my child gets to play,explore nature,learn how to use his hands to craft/write,allowing to feel bored.Kids need to learn who they are before watching an endless stream of what everyone else does,wants,recommends,feels and on and on.Why can’t our children grow up free to be?
At least there are options to attend schools that offer no media access and I think banning phones from public schools is one step forward in the right direction.
It’s surprising to me that the spotlight is so singularly on young people in this discourse at large about social media. I have as much (if not more) concern for the older people in my life who have been far more likely to fall prey than my youngsters to mis/disinformation, conspiracy theories, scams etc. spread through social media and other digital mediums. I see youngsters being far more savvy and critically thinking about what they are consuming, as such an integral part of their lives, than the older people around me who are also consuming digital and social media in large amounts but are far more naive about what they are receiving and taking in.
I find Dr. Gray's views to be a welcome counterbalance to the important work of Haidt and others, but the line of argument in this particular article strikes me as reductive and incomplete. "We've seen this all before" arguments may inject some valuable context into a heated debate, but they also risk obscuring Black Swan events and the dangers they carry. The movies of the early 20th century did not come home with you in your pocket, nor did they optimize themselves for addictive behavior. Movie producers were indeed interested in selling tickets, but they also had to cater to a relatively broad audience, and many were interested in producing a work of art with enduring social relevance. Early comic books often conveyed moral values and served as a stepping stone to more serious reading (this was certainly the case for me). Even video games offer some benefits in problem-solving and coordination, as others have noted.
I fail to find any of these redeeming benefits in TikTok, and I see plenty of harm. If the goal of modern psychologists is to debate which social media meets the technical definition of addictive behavior, or whether the connection between body dysmorphia and these platforms is statistically significant, I would argue that this matters little to parents who *see* their children suffering from these technologies. Perhaps one of the most valuable qualities of the parent-child relationship is the parent's ability to intuitively and holistically monitor their child's well-being. A teenager might self-report that their increasing anxiety is due to school pressures, not their phone, but a parent will notice how much more resiliently and enthusiastically their child navigated life before they began scrolling for six hours a day.
Dr. Gray has argued cogently for a less intensive approach to parenting and a greater degree of self-determination for our children. I resonate with these ideals strongly, but they presuppose a world in which children have the opportunity to explore, play, and at least momentarily step away from the societal judgments and rampant consumerism that we have erected around them. I believe that social media robs them of this opporunity in a way that no other technology ever has. It is not more of the same.
But weren't children being robbed of the opportunity to explore and play well before phones came on the scene?
Certainly, but when they did find time to play, they didn't have to contend with an electronic anchor in their pockets, dragging them back. There's a famous parable about a prison whose door is left unlocked one day, and all of the prisoners escape except for one, because he was born in the prison and has no concept of freedom. That's the difference in kind that I'm talking about. Prior generations were deprived play and yearned for it all the more, taking it where they could get it. But the current generation has selfies to upload and likes to count.
My Baby Boom generation also was accused of confronting censored, seductive media content leaving us overwhelmed, unprotected. Warranting increased censorship, oppression....
Social media is certainly worlds away from comics, film, and TV - they’re not at all the same - but just because it has risks doesn’t mean there are no benefits. I see TikTok frequently singled out as problematic, but it’s really no different from any other app with video front and centre (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook) as far as its content being potentially harmful. But social media apps are not wholly harmful content, nor are they used exclusively for entertainment and corporate advertising. Rather, they are often used for education, activism, and community organizing (all worthwhile and illuminating endeavours that serve as jumping off points for deeper exploration and real world action). For example, many global struggles and injustices have been illuminated by TikTok, many hobbies have been kickstarted by Instagram, many experiments have been inspired by YouTube, and many protests have been organized on all of them.
In a world where producers and publishers curate news and information, these apps are the video versions of substack and medium - giving voice and choice to everyone, and allowing people to hear voices they wouldn’t otherwise. Granted, some of those voices are hateful and/or harmful (misinformation runs rampant, predators lurk, and consumerism abounds), but many of the voices are earnest, educational, and helpful; this is why it’s important for parents to be involved and connected to their kids and what they’re consuming online (not just on social media). Banning social media altogether - whether the government does that or parents do - isn’t the answer, it will just create scarcity and the opportunity for other things to fill the void.
While I hate sitting through a video when I just want to skim something, my homeschooled son thrives on video content for learning. He’s found many wonderful educational content creators to learn from (as well as gaming and cat videos). No matter what video app he’s using, I’m supervising and aware of what he’s consuming, helping him think critically about what he sees. I’m teaching him how to spot conspiracy theories, how to fact check claims, how to detect subtle advertising, how to avoid being scammed, and how to engage with comments and/or messages. The opportunities to learn are endless, but because of the concerns brought up by Haidt, Skenazy, and others regarding smart phones and social media, it’s crucial that kids aren’t left to navigate social media alone - they need boundaries and adult guidance.
More than ever, we need to give our kids the support, tools, and skills required to navigate these digital worlds so that they don’t fall prey to predators, schemes, misinformation, and vapid consumerism (as many adults and kids do). I certainly won’t allow my son to have his own social media accounts until he’s much older, his access to them through my accounts is limited and supervised, but I am establishing a relationship to social media that is thoughtful, intentional, and aware. My elementary aged son has access to an iPad but I utilize passcode protected screen time tools to ensure he only gets access to apps I approve and monitor. He does not have his own social media accounts nor does he engage with social media without my participation/supervision. I have boundaries around online time whether it’s watching videos or playing video games and I also engage in these activities with him, teaching him skills, and helping him understand risks - because I myself am not always aware of time when consuming social media, or readily aware of its impact on my mental health, so I know that my child can’t possibly manage that on his own without coaching and boundaries. That said, my partner and I also work hard to balance his time on screens with time spent doing other things (playing outside, making things, reading, playing board games, participating in sports, etc). I do my very best to let my child lead and I support his interests, but I also teach him moderation, balance, and the importance of connection.
The problem with social media, I think, is that it’s not regulated - it’s designed to benefit the owners and advertisers, not the users. Government regulation, not government bans, are the solution. Regulation would require companies to create stronger protections against predators and hate as well as better controls and abilities for users, especially child/guardian managed accounts. Right now, the only options for kids are YouTube Kids - which is poorly designed, has poor quality content, and blocks a lot of content unnecessarily - and Facebook Messenger Kids - which is a messaging app with games in it (and no ability to turn those off). Though many kids are on other apps not specifically designed for them.
What I’d like to see is all social media apps requiring age and identity verification for full access under 18, and ideally have guardian accounts for those under 18. A guardian account would manage under 18 accounts with the ability to turn off features like shorts, video suggestions, ads, and messaging as well as the ability to block accounts (can’t do this on YouTube currently), set time limits/schedules for use, and utilize effective filters for preferences (which would include inappropriate/undesirable content). The app Epic Books comes to mind - from my parent dashboard, I can create child profiles where I set ages and I can turn features on and off. Alternatively, social media companies could create modified/limited “under 18” accounts with set features, but I think the guardian accounts with the options to customize for your kid(s) based on age/ability/maturity, etc would work best and make it easier to introduce kids to social media safely in addition to improving experiences for kids whose parents do hand them phones without any boundaries (as certainly happens now).
Ultimately, I think an all or nothing approach fails to recognize the benefits of this tech and why kids are so drawn to it. The answer, right now given there’s no regulation, is boundaries, balance, and building skills.
My impression is that Tic Tok pushes viciously harmful content; that its technology per se not what we should target. I agree Tic Tok should be outlawed, as Pres Biden has proposed. Dr. Gray's compelling point to me, among others, is we've had "the sky is falling" with successive generations about the purported harmful impact of new communication technology--on kids especially. I view this as underscoring the need for productive parenting and societies that facilitate this. Orgs like Let Grow. And acknowledging that communication technology will continue advancing. Necessary to master constructively during productive upbringings like so much else. My nerve disease leaves me unable to access much via the internet--robbing me of many basic services: including procuring med. care, medications.
I think what's missing from this point is that there are some parents (like myself) who did have smartphones and social media in their teenage years and don't want that for their kids. We're not just saying it because we're scared of this new technology, we're saying it because we know how destructive this technology can be.
I am lucky enough to live in an area where my children can play outside with plenty of other kids around. What I’ve noticed is that the kids all play and explore happily until around the age they get a phone (about 10) and then you don’t see them anymore. Or you do still see them occasionally but they are sitting next to one another outside staring at their individual phones. It always seems a shame as they’d surely still be playing, exploring and chatting if they didn’t have a smartphone to divert them.
I just had a chat with my brother-in-law about this, who, just like me, is all about letting kids have more freedom and unsupervised play outdoors. Him and my sister live close to a playground where they let their kids (5 and 8) go play with other kids from the neighborhood without adult supervision, but he can see the playground from his window. He tells me it's always the same scenario: the kids play until someone comes along who's got a smartphone and then they all stop their play and gather around that one to see the screen for the rest of the afternoon. I don't understand how Dr Gray is so insisting about this social media and can't seem to concede not even 1% that tiktok and the likes were programmed to keep you addicted as much as possible, that's not even disputed nowadays, it really puzzles me and i would love to be able to grasp his actual thought process and understand what makes him so adamant against any criticism of social media
Hi Peter,
I am sorry but, echoing David Campbell et. al., I really disagree with your premise that social media (not smart phones alone) are just like all the other moral panics of the past.
1) Most of the items on your list are written words so you had to engage your mind to appreciate them. You learned to concentrate and remember complex plots and ideas.
2) TikTok most egregiously, but most apps kids gravitate towards are algorithmically designed with psychological insights taken from the casino business model with timed dopamine hits designed to addict you to simple acts that pay off immediately. No effort is required with the ad and the programming become one in the same.
I find it notable that China’s version of TikTok is time limited and full of mostly educational videos. And yes CCP propaganda too but it is not an infinite scroll of outrage, stupidity, and vacuous attention span shortening ‘entertainment’.
Even Television at its worst was not as addictive. The ads interrupted what you wanted to see on a regular basis. And television programs had an ending allowing for disengagement. Plus parents could step in and forbid the child access after bed time. Now too many kids sleep with their phones and are on them as soon as they are awake.
This time the panic is (for too many kids) fully justified. Attention spans are being shortened and concentration is being stunted. Yes there are many kids that can and do use social media to productive ends. But the number of kids being harmed is growing.
Especially at younger ages when their brains are being ‘wired’ we need to forbid access to that which impairs development of a thoughtful human being. That is why we want free play, is it not?
Technology shapes the brain. It is true of all technology from, language to reading to smartphones with TikTok. For me, the question is: what environment do I want to shape my brain?
I hold no personal judgment towards a persons preferences and curiosities - horror comics or TikTok or spending hours lying in the grass staring at the sky. But these activities do have different impacts on the shape of the brain that have further implications for how each person experiences the world.
My teens have been unschooled their whole lives, and though they have had open access to tech, I have had conversations with them in which I discouraged certain choices.
Today they spend their time doing a wide range of activities - and often need to remind me to get off my phone!
I think that this explanation of “moral panic” may be overblown. Yes kids glom onto these distractions but I think when you say that the adults are “foisting” things on kids you dismiss that they are really just trying to teach moderation. There are other things in life that are suffering because of the almost complete attention they give to one thing, which in this case is social media.
It is important to equalize time spent on other life activities like chores, spirituality, face-to-face interaction with friends and family, and helping in the community in some way. Some things are just more impactful when done as a caring human being without technology. As a school board member I believe that phones in schools are as inappropriate as if boomers would have brought a television to school in their day. Both are, in my opinion, a major distraction to learning the skills needed in the real world.
To your point, “ Data that contradict the stories must be wrong (I’ve heard that from a few readers in response to my critiques of the latest panic),” I am concerned that (with lots of respect) that you are not applying this principle conversely. There is plenty of evidence for the harm of social media, and it is simplistic to brush it all aside because it doesn’t fit the narrative. In this case, just because the data contradicts the story (eg kids know what is good for them) doesn’t make the data wrong.
It’s also entirely possible that other technologies that people have panicked about turn out to be relatively benign (eg comic books). It doesn’t naturally follow that that this pattern is therefore inevitable for social media. Maybe modern technology is really different, and like nothing the world has ever dealt with before, and it could be uniquely harmful.
I also think that the “no smartphone for kids” movement is not as simplistic as you think. Jonathan Haidt, for instance, is a big proponent of giving kids more offline freedom and play (he quotes your work on the importance of play in his book). It’s not just taking phones away, it’s replacing them with the play and social experiences that humans are designed to have.
Very interested to read this, which was forwarded by my daughter. I can’t speak for the Victorians or the early 20th Century, but as a consumer of media from the 1940s on, in the UK, I can share my experiences since then.
When I was a small child and my brother even smaller, we were allowed one ‘comic’ per week, paid for by my parents. I was given a comic called Chicks’ Own, while my brother received Tiny Tots. I have little recollection of this literature but I am sure it was anodyne and completely harmless, They were delivered weekly along with my parents’ Daily Telegraph. Apparently they are fetching about £30 a copy on Ebay, having cost little more than today’s 1p.
We were not allowed The Beano or Dandy – my mother said they were vulgar. Which led to much perusing of these terrible items at the barbers while my brothers had their hair cut.
After much asking, we were allowed to graduate to School Friend and Tiger respectively (probably some time after most of our contemporaries!). Tiger’s most popular strip was Roy of the Rovers, focussing on soccer. School Friend featured boarding school adventures on the front page, and also included equestrian offerings. Later it amalgamated with its sister comic Girls’ Crystal.
We were not allowed Girl or Eagle, companion papers with better colour and paper, perhaps because they were more expensive – but there may have been objections to content in addition.
But my strongest, and bitter, memory of comics derives from when I was about 8, so probably late 1940s or early 1950s I had a friend in primary school who lent me a couple of comics which she had borrowed from her teenaged brother (he was forbidden by their parents from letting her read them). They offered tales of unpleasant supernatural experiences – I forget the titles (‘Tales of the Supernatural’ comes to mind but may not be accurate). I was a prosaic realistic child with a stronger sense of the difference between fact and fiction than I have now. I don’t believe they did me any harm although I retain one image still, which may say otherwise. I did not realise that my parents might have a problem with these items, but they must have confiscated them, and I was accosted in school by my friend who informed me that my father had written to hers, enclosing the comics and presumably complaining. Her brother was in trouble, and the child was forbidden by her parents from coming to Sunday School with me. I lost a friend – one of whom I suspect my parents disapproved because of social class difference – with whom I had enjoyed various illicit practices such as rowing on the local boating lake when we were under age (she had taught me to row) and stealing small amounts of money from our parents to buy fruit and pay for the rowing. But she was my only friend at the time and the loss was painful.
My criticism of Jonathan Haidt's Phone Ban Crusade is two-fold: (1) it distracts resources and attention from addressing the very real factors underlying the challenges to the mental well-being of today's younger generations (anxiety, depression, lack of agency and resilience) and (2) pretends to present an easy, too-attractive solution by banning phones in schools, a solution that will prove to be irrelevant and ineffective.
Peter and others, including Professor Haidt, have rightly pointed out for years how the decline in free-play has contributed to and driven the decline in mental health in children, but taking phones away from young humans will not magically cause them to go outside and play with other kids — there are no kids to play with! Jonathan Haidt's childhood of neighborhoods full of four- and five-children homes with kids ready to play pickup baseball and four-square has been replaced with single- and two-child households thanks to contraception, and even those kids are unavailable since they have been impressed into adult-supervised sports and school extracurriculars.
The Phone Ban Crusade so facilely popular with teachers and politicians might rip phones out of kids' hands, but it won't bring back free-play, as Jonathan Haidt predicts — declining fertility rates and Freddie deBoer's "Cult of Smart" preclude that.
Is it possible that it isn't just disappearing neighborhoods that have killed free-play and its benefits, but that declining fertility has significantly eliminated that community that first provided the greatest opportunity for developing skills at negotiation and resilience and agency — the three- and four-sibling household, our first "neighborhood"?
This is all because now you need two incomes and those take 8+ hours of being away from home. Look at every problem, it comes back to that.
Lila, why do you say two incomes are needed?
Me? Elizabeth Warren has a bestselling book saying it.
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/by-request-the-cult-of-smart
https://brinklindsey.substack.com/p/robin-hanson-on-declining-fertility
I think the backlash against social media is less moral panic and more akin to concerns about smoking (or more recently vaping). In both situations you have companies peddling an addictive substance and intentionally trying to hook users at a young age, and in both situations there definite problems with the use (or over-use) of the substance. For a recent example, see the Jan 9 post on the After Babel Substack detailing the findings from an improperly redacted legal brief on TikTok's operating practices. This sort of bad behavior on the part of social media companies has been around for a long time though - I was going to talks a decade ago at a well-known academic institution in Silicon Valley about techniques for testing what content is more engaging to users and profiling accounts.
I think I agree with Peter that we may want to focus more on providing free play and agency to children and not just take smart phones away only to keep children on track to improve their test scores. I also agree that Haidt's conclusions can be met with a healthy dose of academic skepticism. However, I do disagree with a laissez faire approach to children and social media, since the reality is that the dominant forms of it are not working for the user, but against them. I am not a Luddite - I make a living working with computers, and have some hope for a better future for the internet. But as a Millennial who came of age with social media the only thing I can say about it is the less of it is in my life and the life of those around me, the better off I am (and unfortunately this still applies to the what I currently allow myself, Substack and Hacker News, since they will still distract me more than I would like).
I would LOVE to see you talk to DrK from Healthy Gamer. I actually read his book "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer" because gaming addiction is a thing, but its not well understood and gaming is not always appreciated for what it does for people.
One of the things I love about capitalism, got to give the devil his due, was how Star Trek opened the gates to nerdery as a profitable endeavor with fandom being sufficient to support conventions and stuff like that. We live in a consumerist age, and I don't deny or make apology for identifying with stuff I own or play with. I even have some lazy cosplay outfits I wear to nerd conventions.
I hope we are growing to be less afraid of the future. It feels like hard won progress has been happening, but probably future progress will also be hard too.
This feels as reductive as the folks saying phones are bad. Look deeper at what each of these were about. Parents and teachers were noticing something very real - media that came in without the control of the adult caregivers and disrupted the attachment between the caregivers and children, and showed them a seductive vision of the world where they didnt have to fulfill their responsibilities or listen to grownups, or worse, learning age-inaoppropriate knowledge from dangerous sources.
We don't anymore worry about older media because we controlled and regulated them in many ways and with wider acceptance, the most common material became family-oriented. I don't think a parent who comes across their 10 year old reading dinosaur porn fiction (there are a ton available on Amazon for a dollar) is going to be okay with that because it is "improving literacy" or providing them knowledge about dinosaur anatomy. Porn websites were early adopters of cutting edge technologies, no one dreams of their children using or working on these sites.
The danger now also is phones can put kids directly in contact with predators with parents having no idea. Underprivileged children spend a lot of time playing on roblox in the library. Their parents think they are safe. But roblox doesn't have the best track record on child safety. Is it unjustified to panic about stuff like this?
The problem is when parents don't talk to their kids about these things and don't have a relationship with their kids. Some people would far sooner tune into fear mongering media rather than have an uncomfortable conversation with their kid.
It's really hard to talk to kids about stuff they have a grip on but you don't. You just sound old and out of touch and they underestimate the risks and besides, all the kids are doing it. It's easy for me to talk about TV because I've spent a lot of time on it. And phones too I guess because I am used to internet addiction. But these social gaming sites when no kids do much IRL? That's not a world I'm familiar with or know to navigate and I'd just rather no one is exposed to roblox chat.
The answer is to ask kids about it and have them explain it to you. And that's not even my answer, that's pretty much DrK's advice in "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer"
You do great service to youth rights and child liberation with this essay, although I'm a little disappointed to see you speculate idly on the harms of television even as you warn against idle speculation on the harms of other media. Physician, heal thyself!
I want you to know, that my kids actually asked us for limited screen time. It was obvious to them when they went overboard, and they wanted help limiting their use
OK, that makes sense. People may ask for help when their willpower is weak, as when Odysseus relied on his crewmen to keep him safe from the deadly song of the sirens. But I don't think that it validates any of the moral panics.
Here in the Netherlands, smartphones and other devices have recently been banned in all schools (primary and secondary education). On the basis of, in my view, poorly substantiated and implemented research, the statement is that they would negatively affect learning performance and concentration. Although I understand that some people look with suspicion at the intensive use of smartphones and the amount of time children spend on them, I have doubts about this ban. Aren't we making schools even more places that children mainly experience as alienating? Isn't it our job to prepare them for the world of tomorrow? In the whole discussion about this, I missed a nuanced dissenting voice like that of Peter Gray!
I agree! I think the school phone bans are especially troubling because the world outside schools is still full of phones, so how are kids being prepared to actually live in the world if they're in an environment where they can't learn responsible phone use?
There is no responsible phone use for a teenager! School should be a place of learning, a place without the distraction of the phone. At least for a few hours a day. I’ve taught in high schools, kids are shopping on Amazon, watching porn (yes), checking social media and playing video games. It is a joke. It is sad, it’s a disaster in my opinion. These kids are not being prepared for the real world sadly.
Zoe - kids are in school about 6 hours a day, 175ish days a year, give or take. They spend the vast majority of their time "in the world". Let them learn internet, or smartphone under the guidance of their parents and community. When they are in school, let's have them learning academics, as well as practicing social skills in a distraction free environment.
Besides all that, the argument of "well, they're going to have to learn responsible phone use at some point" has been the default policy. It's not worked out very well, so rather than say "hey there is a problem here, let's keep trying the same thing that hasn't worked", maybe we can try something different?
As a parent it’s my job to make sure my child gets to play,explore nature,learn how to use his hands to craft/write,allowing to feel bored.Kids need to learn who they are before watching an endless stream of what everyone else does,wants,recommends,feels and on and on.Why can’t our children grow up free to be?
At least there are options to attend schools that offer no media access and I think banning phones from public schools is one step forward in the right direction.
It’s surprising to me that the spotlight is so singularly on young people in this discourse at large about social media. I have as much (if not more) concern for the older people in my life who have been far more likely to fall prey than my youngsters to mis/disinformation, conspiracy theories, scams etc. spread through social media and other digital mediums. I see youngsters being far more savvy and critically thinking about what they are consuming, as such an integral part of their lives, than the older people around me who are also consuming digital and social media in large amounts but are far more naive about what they are receiving and taking in.