The 4 Foundational Harms of a Phone-Based Childhood (and Adulthood)
Haidt's four identified harms may be particularly damaging among children and teens, but they are just as ubiquitous in adults.
In a recent post on Instagram, author and professor Jonathan Haidt (“The Anxious Generation”) spoke to the unexpected but direct and pervasive harms that a “phone-based childhood” has led to.
”When we ushered in the #phonebasedchildhood around 2010, we didn’t anticipate these 4 foundational harms. Now, 14 years later, we have research that shows the multifaceted negative impacts of a childhood that includes hours a day spent on smartphones and social media.”
Haidt’s four identified harms include:
SOCIAL DEPRIVATION. “Children need a lot of time to play with each other, face to face, to foster social development. In puberty the brain is rapidly rewiring, and the endless scroll alone in their bedroom is not a healthy substitute for social cues picked up from in-person interactions.”
SLEEP DEPRIVATION. “A basic concept in economics is opportunity cost. Doing one thing may offer benefits, but it also means not doing other things. The 8-9 hours teenagers are spending on screens daily entail a sacrifice of other, healthier activities, like sleep and exercise.”
ATTENTION FRAGMENTATION. “It’s hard enough for adults to stay committed to mental tasks, but it’s far harder for an adolescent, who has an immature frontal cortex and therefore limited ability to say no to off-ramps.”
ADDICTION. “When you eat a food you like, you get a small hit of dopamine, which is why you then want the second bite even more than the first. This happens to children with video games and social media, and it happens by design. The creators of these apps use every trick in the psychologists’ toolkit to hook users as deeply as slot machines hook gamblers.
What strikes me in reflecting on these four harms, is that while their damaging effects may be amplified in children and teens, they are just as ubiquitous in adults. I can easily identify aspects of my cell phone’s influence in each of these four areas in my own life. It’s sobering to consider that while I’ve been vigilant in limiting cell phones in our children’s lives, I’ve rarely adopted the same level of vigilance towards myself and my practice of screen time.
Lots to think about and pray through here.
I’m very thankful for Haidt’s work, even if it offers tough, humbling pills to swallow.