# data[].attributes.body
Gen Z’s close proximity to the internet is making them sick and stopping them from developing positively. We should change how society handles children's technology and Internet use.

# data[].attributes.body
His Introduction

Haidt utilizes surprising statistics in order to catch the reader's attention immediately. He also mentions that the issue he's highlighting is global, making sure his audience is as large as possible. This is because he has a specific goal to give everyone his claim. I will make sure to write an introduction which has the write hook for my target audience.

The Evidence's Flow

The way Haidt uses evidence almost makes it seem like he is not using evidence in the first place. What I mean by this is his clever flow stitches together his evidence in a discrete way, making it unsure to the audience when one evidence starts and another ends. In this way, his evidence is a lot easier to read together, making it much stronger. I'll try to use evidence in the same way in my essays.

The Overall Structure

Haidt specifically added titles to his sub-sections, to make it as clear as possible. He has a lot of content to get through, so he wanted to label and sort his evidence so that it's much more coherent. I'm not sure yet if I want to use sub-headings, but I will definitely find pieces of evidence which work well together and at least have sub-sections without the headers.

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Social media causes lower grades from fragmented attention

Internet use is addictive, bringing emotional changes

Internet exposure causes a saturation of many less important issues, clouding the major ones.

Not even Gen Z themselves sees their social media as positive

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"Studies confirm that when students have access to their phones during class time, they use them, especially for texting and checking social media, and their grades and learning suffer"

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Kim, Inyeop, et al. “Understanding Smartphone Usage in College Classrooms: A Long-Term Measurement Study.” Computers & Education, vol. 141, 26 June 2019, pp. 103611–103611, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360131519301642?via%3Dihub, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103611.

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"The neural basis of behavioral addiction to social media or video games is not exactly the same as chemical addiction to cocaine or opioids. Nonetheless, they all involve abnormally heavy and sustained activation of dopamine neurons and reward pathways. Over time, the brain adapts to these high levels of dopamine; when the child is not engaged in digital activity, their brain doesn’t have enough dopamine, and the child experiences withdrawal symptoms. These generally include anxiety, insomnia, and intense irritability."

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Lembke, Dr Anna. Dopamine Nation. Penguin, 24 Aug. 2021

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Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

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Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

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"But as soon as they adopted a phone-based life and many began to live in the whirlpool of social media, where no stability can be found, every measure of despair increased. From 2010 to 2019, the number who agreed that their lives felt 'meaningless' increased by about 70 percent, to more than one in five."

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MTF - Loneliness, Friendship, Meaninglessness, Suicide

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"Gen Z were the guinea pigs in this uncontrolled global social experiment. We were the first to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us, all the time, before we had any sense of who we were. We didn’t just grow up with algorithms. They raised us. They rearranged our faces. Shaped our identities. Convinced us we were sick."

# data[].attributes.custom_properties.d9Zbfiy0
India, Freya, and Jon Haidt. “Algorithms Hijacked My Generation. I Fear for Gen Alpha.” Afterbabel.com, After Babel, 10 Nov. 2023, www.afterbabel.com/p/algorithms-hijacked-my-generation.

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Algorithms Hijacked My Generation. I Fear For Gen Alpha.

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Freya India explains how algorithms act as conveyor belts, transporting girls to dark and extreme places

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Social media is averse from drugs because you can't really choose to not use the internet

Also, it affects people who don't use it as well.

Even adolescents who dislike social media keep in to not become socially isolated.

# data[].attributes.body
"Teens could and did choose, in large numbers, not to smoke. Even at the peak of teen cigarette use, in 1997, nearly two-thirds of high-school students did not smoke."

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“Tobacco Use among High School Students -- United States, 1997.” Cdc.gov, 2025, www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00051762.htm.

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Tobacco use is the single leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1). Approximately 80% of tobacco use occurs for the first time among youth aged less than 18 years (2), and the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adolescents increased during the early 1990s (3). To determine prevalence rates of cigarette, smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco or snuff), and cigar use for U.S. high school students, CDC analyzed data from the 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This report summarizes the results of the analysis, which indicate that the prevalence of current cigarette smoking among U.S. high school students increased from 27.5% in 1991 to 36.4% in 1997 and that, in 1997, 42.7% of students used cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, or cigars during the 30 days preceding the survey.

YRBS, a component of CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (4), biennially measures the prevalence of priority health-risk behaviors among youth through representative national, state, and local surveys. The 1997 national YRBS used a three-stage cluster sample design to obtain a representative sample of 16,262 students in grades 9-12 in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The school response rate was 79.1%, the student response rate was 87.2%, and the overall response rate was 69.0%. Data were weighted to provide national estimates, and SUDAAN (R) (Software for the Statistical Analysis of Correlated Data) was used to calculate standard errors for determining 95% confidence intervals. *

Students completed a self-administered questionnaire that included questions about cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and cigar use. Lifetime cigarette smokers were defined as students who had ever smoked cigarettes, even one or two puffs. Current cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and cigar users were defined as students who reported product use on greater than or equal to 1 of the 30 days preceding the survey. Frequent cigarette use was defined as smoking cigarettes on greater than or equal to 20 of the 30 days preceding the survey. Any current tobacco use was defined as use of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, or cigars on greater than or equal to 1 of the 30 days preceding the survey. Data are presented only for non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic white, and Hispanic students because the numbers of students from other racial/ethnic groups were too small for meaningful analysis.

Prevalence of Cigarette Use

The overall prevalences of lifetime, current, and frequent cigarette use were 70.2%, 36.4%, and 16.7%, respectively ( Table_1). The prevalence of lifetime cigarette smoking was higher among Hispanic male students (76.9%) than among white male students (70.4%). The prevalence of current cigarette smoking was higher among white students (39.7%) than Hispanic (34.0%) and black (22.7%) students, and Hispanic students (34.0%) were more likely to report current cigarette smoking than black students (22.7%). Among males, the prevalence of current cigarette smoking was higher among white students (39.6%) than black students (28.2%). Among females, the prevalence of current cigarette smoking was higher among white students (39.9%) than Hispanic (32.3%) and black (17.4%) students, and Hispanic female students (32.3%) were more likely to report current cigarette smoking than black female students (17.4%). Among black students, males (28.2%) were more likely than females (17.4%) to report current cigarette smoking.

The prevalence of frequent cigarette smoking was higher among white students (19.9%) than among Hispanic (10.9%) and black (7.2%) students. Among males, the prevalence of frequent cigarette smoking was higher among white students (19.8%) than black students (10.1%). Among females, the prevalence of frequent cigarette smoking was higher among white students (20.1%) than Hispanic (8.1%) and black (4.3%) students. Among black students, males (10.1%) were more likely than females (4.3%) to report frequent cigarette smoking.

Trend analyses of current cigarette smoking found significantly increasing trends overall and among all racial/ethnic subgroups (p less

than 0.001). The overall prevalence of current cigarette smoking increased from 27.5% in 1991 to 36.4% in 1997. Among white students, current cigarette smoking increased from 30.9% in 1991 to 39.7% in 1997. Among black students, current cigarette smoking increased from 12.6% in 1991 to 22.7% in 1997. Among Hispanic students, current cigarette smoking increased from 25.3% in 1991 to 34.0% in 1997.

Prevalence of Smokeless Tobacco Use

The overall prevalence of current smokeless tobacco use was 9.3% ( Table_1). The prevalence of current smokeless tobacco use was higher among male students (15.8%) than female students (1.5%) and among white students (12.2%) than black (2.2%) and Hispanic (5.1%) students. White male students (20.6%) were more likely than any other subgroup to report current smokeless tobacco use; Hispanic male students (8.4%) were more likely than black male students (3.2%) to report this behavior. Among Hispanic students, males (8.4%) were more likely than females (1.2%) to report current smokeless tobacco use.

Prevalence of Cigar Use

The overall prevalence of current cigar use was 22.0% ( Table_1). Male students (31.2%) were more likely to use cigars than female students (10.8%). This difference held within each racial/ethnic subgroup. Ninth-grade students (17.3%) were less likely than 11th-grade students (24.2%) to use cigars.

Prevalence of Any Current Tobacco Use

The overall prevalence of any current tobacco use was 42.7% ( Table_1). Male students (48.2%) were more likely to report any current tobacco use than female students (36.0%), and this difference held within each racial/ethnic subgroup. The prevalence of any current tobacco use was higher among white students (46.8%) than Hispanic (36.8%) and black (29.4%) students. These differences held for both male and female students. The prevalence of any current tobacco use was higher among Hispanic students (36.8%) than black students (29.4%) overall and among female students (31.4% of Hispanic females and 21.5% of black females).

Reported by: Office on Smoking and Health, and Div of Adolescent and School Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.

Editorial Note

Editorial Note: This report is the first to include cigarette, smokeless tobacco, and cigar use in a measure of current tobacco use and the first to report on past-month cigar use among a nationally representative sample of high school students. The increasing prevalence of cigarette smoking since 1991, the high rate of smokeless tobacco and cigar use, and the high rate of any tobacco use suggest that a major proportion of U.S. youth already have or are at risk for nicotine addiction (5,6) and the subsequent health problems caused by tobacco use (2,6).

In 1997, the prevalence of current cigarette smoking was 32% higher than in 1991; current cigarette smoking increased 80% among black students, 34% among Hispanic students, and 28% among white students. The reasons for the large differences in overall prevalence of current cigarette smoking and the increases in cigarette smoking among students in all the racial/ethnic groups are unclear and require further investigation. CDC is conducting research to help explain these differences and the reasons for continued increases in tobacco use among all youth.

The findings in this report are subject to at least two limitations. First, these data apply only to youth who attend high school and, therefore, are not representative of all persons in this age group. In 1996, only 6% of persons aged 16-17 years were not enrolled in a high school program and had not completed high school (7). Second, the measure of any current tobacco use described in this report might be an underestimate, because it does not include measures of pipe and "roll-your-own" tobacco smoking.

In 1994, CDC recommended that school-based tobacco-use prevention programs begin in elementary school and continue through 12th grade, with intensive instruction for students in grades six through eight (i.e., up to 10 smoking-focused sessions each year) (8). Data from the 1994 School Health Policies and Programs Study indicated that only 55% of middle/junior high and 47% of senior high school health education teachers taught tobacco-use prevention as a major topic (9). Of these teachers, 43% of middle/junior high and 42% of senior high school teachers taught only one or two classes on the topic. Additional research findings indicate that school-based tobacco-use prevention programs are most effective when supported by communitywide programs that involve parents, peers, mass media, and community organizations (2).

Tobacco-use prevention activities should be designed to prevent the use of all tobacco products. Such activities should include increasing tobacco prices, reducing access (e.g., by implementing and adequately enforcing minors' access restrictions), reducing the appeal of tobacco products (e.g., by restricting advertising and promotion), and conducting youth-oriented mass media campaigns and school-based tobacco-use prevention programs (2,10). Establishing health-oriented social norms (e.g., by increasing provision of smoke-free indoor air and decreasing modeling of tobacco use by parents, teachers, and celebrities) and increasing support and involvement from parents and schools also will contribute to prevention (2).

References

1. McGinnis JM, Foege WH. Actual causes of death in the United States. JAMA 1993;270:2207-12.

2. US Department of Health and Human Services. Preventing tobacco use among young people: a report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, CDC, 1994.

3. Everett SA, Husten CG, Warren CW, Crossett L, Sharp D. Trends in tobacco use among high school students in the United States, 1991-1995. J Sch Health (in press).

4. Kolbe LJ, Kann L, Collins JL. Overview of the youth risk behavior surveillance system. Public Health Rep 1993;108(suppl 1):2-9.

5. Giovino GA, Henningfield J, Tomar SL, Escobedo LE, Slade J. Epidemiology of tobacco use and dependence. Epidemiol Rev 1995;17: 48-65.

6. National Cancer Institute. Cigars: health effects and trends. Bethesda, Maryland: US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, 1998; NIH publication no. 98-4302. (Smoking and tobacco control monograph no. 9) (in press).

7. National Center for Education Statistics. Dropout rates in the United States, 1996. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1997.

8. CDC. Guidelines for school health programs to prevent tobacco use and addiction. MMWR 1994;43(no. RR-2):1-18.

9. Crossett L, Everett SA, Brener N, Fishman J, Pechacek T. Measuring adherence to the CDC guidelines for school health programs to prevent tobacco use and addiction. J Health Educ (in press).

10. Food and Drug Administration. Regulations restricting the sale and distribution of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to children and adolescents; final rule. Federal Register 1996;61: 44395-618.

Differences between prevalence estimates were considered statistically significant if the 95% confidence intervals did not overlap. Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Table_1
Note: To print large tables and graphs users may have to change their printer settings to landscape and use a small font size.

TABLE 1. Percentage of high school students * who used cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, or cigars, by sex, race/ethnicity, and
grade -- United States, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 1997
====================================================================================================================================================================
                                                        Cigarette use                                     Current
                              ----------------------------------------------------------------           smokeless              Current             Any current,
                                  Lifetime +              Current &              Frequent @            tobacco use **         cigar use ++         tobacco use &&
                              -------------------      ---------------        ----------------        ----------------      ----------------      ----------------
Category                       %      (95% CI @@)       %     (95% CI)         %      (95% CI)         %      (95% CI)       %      (95% CI)       %      (95% CI)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sex
  Male                        70.9      (+/-1.9)       37.7   (+/-2.7)        17.6    (+/-2.7)        15.8    (+/-3.7)      31.2    (+/-2.3)      48.2    (+/-2.8)
  Female                      69.3      (+/-2.6)       34.7   (+/-2.8)        15.7    (+/-2.1)         1.5    (+/-0.7)      10.8    (+/-2.4)      36.0    (+/-2.8)

Race/Ethnicity ***
  White, non-Hispanic         70.4      (+/-2.3)       39.7   (+/-2.4)        19.9    (+/-2.2)        12.2    (+/-2.5)      22.5    (+/-2.6)      46.8    (+/-1.9)
    Male                      70.4      (+/-2.4)       39.6   (+/-3.8)        19.8    (+/-3.3)        20.6    (+/-4.0)      32.5    (+/-2.1)      51.5    (+/-2.4)
    Female                    70.3      (+/-3.3)       39.9   (+/-3.2)        20.1    (+/-3.2)         1.6    (+/-0.9)       9.6    (+/-2.6)      40.8    (+/-3.1)
  Black, non-Hispanic         68.4      (+/-4.4)       22.7   (+/-3.8)         7.2    (+/-1.8)         2.2    (+/-1.1)      19.4    (+/-3.2)      29.4    (+/-3.0)
    Male                      70.1      (+/-4.7)       28.2   (+/-5.5)        10.1    (+/-3.1)         3.2    (+/-1.7)      28.1    (+/-5.3)      37.6    (+/-4.7)
    Female                    66.8      (+/-5.2)       17.4   (+/-3.9)         4.3    (+/-1.8)         1.3    (+/-1.2)      11.0    (+/-2.9)      21.5    (+/-4.2)
  Hispanic                    75.0      (+/-2.7)       34.0   (+/-2.7)        10.9    (+/-2.6)         5.1    (+/-2.3)      20.3    (+/-4.4)      36.8    (+/-3.4)
    Male                      76.9      (+/-3.6)       35.5   (+/-3.6)        13.2    (+/-3.7)         8.4    (+/-3.3)      26.3    (+/-7.0)      41.3    (+/-5.0)
    Female                    72.7      (+/-3.9)       32.3   (+/-3.7)         8.1    (+/-2.7)         1.2    (+/-1.0)      13.0    (+/-2.8)      31.4    (+/-3.8)

Grade
   9                          67.7      (+/-5.1)       33.4   (+/-5.1)        13.1    (+/-3.8)         9.7    (+/-2.7)      17.3    (+/-2.9)      38.0    (+/-5.3)
  10                          70.0      (+/-3.9)       35.3   (+/-4.1)        15.0    (+/-1.9)         6.8    (+/-1.7)      22.3    (+/-3.4)      40.9    (+/-4.1)
  11                          68.8      (+/-3.1)       36.6   (+/-3.6)        18.9    (+/-2.8)        10.0    (+/-2.5)      24.2    (+/-2.9)      44.2    (+/-3.1)
  12                          73.7      (+/-4.1)       39.6   (+/-4.9)        19.4    (+/-3.1)        10.5    (+/-3.6)      23.8    (+/-4.2)      47.0    (+/-6.1)

Total                         70.2      (+/-1.9)       36.4   (+/-2.3)        16.7    (+/-1.9)         9.3    (+/-2.2)      22.0    (+/-2.1)      42.7    (+/-2.3)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  * N=16,262.
  + Ever tried cigarette smoking, even one or two puffs.
  & Smoked cigarettes on >= 1 of the 30 days preceding the survey.
  @ Smoked cigarettes on >= 20 of the 30 days preceding the survey.
 ** Used smokeless tobacco on >= 1 of the 30 days preceding the survey.
 ++ Smoked cigars on >= 1 of the 30 days preceding the survey.
 && Smoked cigarettes, used smokeless tobacco, or smoked cigars on >= 1 of the 30 days preceding the survey.
 @@ Confidence interval.
*** Numbers for other racial/ethnic groups were too small for meaningful analysis.
====================================================================================================================================================================

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**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov. Page converted: 10/05/98

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Tobacco Use Among High School Students -- United States, 1997

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Tobacco use is the single leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1). Approximately 80% of tobacco use occurs for the first time among youth aged less than 18 years (2), and the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adolescents increased during the early 1990s (3).

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Social media, let alone the Internet, is forcibly pushed onto almost everyone.

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"On average, students said they’d need to be paid roughly $50 ($59 for TikTok, $47 for Instagram) to deactivate whichever platform they were asked about. Then the experimenters told the students that they were going to try to get most of the others in their school to deactivate that same platform, offering to pay them to do so as well, and asked, Now how much would you have to be paid to deactivate, if most others did so? The answer, on average, was less than zero. In each case, most students were willing to pay to have that happen."

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When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media | Becker Friedman Institute

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Individuals might experience negative utility from not consuming a popular product. For example, being inactive on social media can lead to social exclusion or not owning luxury brands can be associated with having a low social status. We show that, in the presence of such spillovers to non-users, standard measures that take aggregate consumption as Read more…

# data[].attributes.body
An issue where the members of a group would benefit more from working together, except they don't because of conflicting interests.

# data[].attributes.body
A state of mind in which the person feels as if they are alone, with no connections, even if they are around people and even if they talk to others.

# data[].attributes.body
A state of attention which is split between multiple trains of thought or activities. As opposed to multi-tasking, this is only negative.

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"Early app developers deliberately and knowingly exploited the psychological weaknesses and insecurities of young people to pressure them to consume a product that, upon reflection, many wish they could use less, or not at all."

# data[].attributes.custom_properties.d9Zbfiy0
Allen, Mike. “Sean Parker Unloads on Facebook: “God Only Knows What It’s Doing to Our Children’s Brains.”” Axios, 15 Dec. 2017, www.axios.com/2017/12/15/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-to-our-childrens-brains-1513306792.

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Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, gave me a candid insider's look at how social networks purposely hook and potentially hurt our brains.

Be smart: Parker's I-was-there account provides priceless perspective in the rising debate about the power and effects of the social networks, which now have scale and reach unknown in human history. He's worried enough that he's sounding the alarm. Parker, 38, now founder and chair of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, spoke yesterday at an Axios event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, about accelerating cancer innovation. In the green room, Parker mentioned that he has become "something of a conscientious objector" on social media. By the time he left the stage, he jokingly said Mark Zuckerberg will probably block his account after reading this:

"When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would say, 'I'm not on social media.' And I would say, 'OK. You know, you will be.' And then they would say, 'No, no, no. I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value presence. I value intimacy.' And I would say, ... 'We'll get you eventually.'""I don't know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and ... it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other ... It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains." "The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, ... was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'" "And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you ... more likes and comments." "It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.""The inventors, creators - it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people - understood this consciously. And we did it anyway." P.S. Parker, on life science allowing us to "live much longer, more productive lives": "Because I'm a billionaire, I'm going to have access to better health care so ... I'm going to be like 160 and I'm going to be part of this, like, class of immortal overlords. [Laughter] Because, you know the [Warren Buffett] expression about compound interest. ... [G]ive us billionaires an extra hundred years and you'll know what ... wealth disparity looks like." Go deeper: See the video of Parker's comments.
Go deeper: Sign up for Axios newsletters to get our Smart Brevity delivered to your inbox every morning. Joe Biden rips Trump's "phony nationalism".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sean Parker unloads on Facebook: "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, gave me a candid insider's look at how social networks purposely hook and potentially hurt our brains. Be smart: Parker's I-was-there account provides priceless perspective in the rising debate about the power and effects of the social networks, which now have scale and reach unknown in human history.

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When our public life becomes fragmented, ephemeral, and incomprehensible, it is a recipe for anomie, or normlessness. The great French sociologist Émile Durkheim showed long ago that a society that fails to bind its people together with some shared sense of sacredness and common respect for rules and norms is not a society of great individual freedom

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Durkheim, Emile. Suicide: a study in sociology. New York: The free Press, 1966

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2. The Virtual World Arrives in Two Waves

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2. The Virtual World Arrives in Two Waves

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The internet arrived in two waves: One which barely affected millennials, and the other which changed Gen Z forever

The second, which came with high-speed internet and the iPhone, changed the virtual world forever.

It became possible for adolescents to spend every waking moment online.

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By 2003, 55 percent of American households had a computer with (slow) internet access. Rates of adolescent depression, loneliness, and other measures of poor mental health did not rise in this first wave. If anything, they went down a bit.

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“When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media | Becker Friedman Institute.” Becker Friedman Institute, 21 Nov. 2024, bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2023-131/.

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In 2011, only 23 percent of teens had a smartphone. By 2015, that number had risen to 73 percent, and a quarter of teens said they were online “almost constantly.”

# data[].attributes.custom_properties.d9Zbfiy0
Lenhart, Amanda. “A Majority of American Teens Report Access to a Computer, Game Console, Smartphone and a Tablet.” Pew Research Center, 9 Apr. 2015, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/04/09/a-majority-of-american-teens-report-access-to-a-computer-game-console-smartphone-and-a-tablet/. 

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A Majority of American Teens Report Access to a Computer, Game Console, Smartphone and a Tablet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In our exploration of teens’ digital technology ownership, we wanted to capture both what teens “owned” — sometimes a tricky concept within families where

# data[].attributes.body
I decided to structure my map almost like a timeline, with my sub-claims connected to each other. This is to give myself more space for each sub-claim. I placed key terms from each sub-claim above them to make it so you can read them all at once or read them with each sub-claim as well. Every one of his paragraphs has essentially hidden evidence among the words, where he references it and then the words are a hyperlink to the evidence. So, I decided to link the evidence to each sub-claim and some have reasoning to make it more clear on why they connect.

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The tendency to stay inactive and seated, usually inside for a lot of your life. A type of lifestyle.

# data[].attributes.headline
3. Techno-optimism and the Birth of the Phone-Based Childhood

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3. Techno-optimism and the Birth of the Phone-Based Childhood

# data[].attributes.body
Technology was viewed as positive and the negatives weren’t thought about when it was established.

# data[].attributes.body
The first generation of humans who were born surrounded by the "Digital Age", ore the forefront of the Internet. This roughly covers Gen Z.

# data[].attributes.body
The Internet, when it was created, was obviously the first of its kind. The people behind it were almost idolized as gods as their age, many wanted to be just like them. "When pundits and entrepreneurs talked about the power of social media to transform society, it didn't sound like a dark prophecy"(Haidt).

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The internet and computers were seen as "the vanguards of progress", and young people as "digital natives"(Haidt), as of they were conquering a new frontier. So, why not give children a head start? Haidt himself though giving his 2 year old son Haidt's phone, and how that the child could learn how to use it as "his future job prospects improving"(Haidt).

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Many parents still did have concerns on children talking to strangers and such.

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Madden, Mary. “Main Report.” Pew Research Center, 20 Nov. 2012, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/11/20/main-report-10/. 

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Introduction

There is a growing policy discussion about how government should act in an environment in which personal information-about both children and adults-is widely collected, analyzed and shared as a new form of currency in the digital economy. Many details about the lives of online (and offline) Americans can be found using simple search queries and their traits and interests are often easily discovered through their social media posts and through the social networks they build. Unless they take specific measures to prevent certain information from being tracked, internet service providers track much of their online behavior and amass this information to deliver ads to them. Most of the free services available online involve a trade off: In return for being able to access services online for free, information is collected about users to deliver targeted advertising.

In the U.S., websites that are collecting information about children under the age of 13 must comply with regulations established under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. In effect since 2000, these rules have required website operators to obtain parental consent before gathering information about children under the age of 13 or giving them access to "interactive" features of the site that may allow them to share personal information with others. Some of the most popular web properties, such as Facebook, have opted to avoid the parental consent framework and instead forbid all children under the age of 13 from creating accounts. Yet, previous studies from the Pew Internet Project and other media scholars have suggested that many underage children continue to use social media, many lie about their age, and in some cases, parents are helping their children circumvent restrictions to gain access to the sites they wish to use.

The Federal Trade Commission recently proposed changes to COPPA that would address some of the radical technological changes that have occurred since the law was first written. The proposed modifications include a new requirement that third-party advertisers and other "plug-ins" will have to comply with COPPA, and the definition of "personal information" has been expanded to include persistent identifiers such as cookies and location information that includes a street, city or town name. With respect to age, websites that cater to a mixed-age audience (such as Disney.com) will now be allowed to "screen" a user's age and only be required to provide COPPA protections for users age 13 and under. However, sites that are directed at users under 13 will still have to treat all users as children. Nearly 100 public comments have been filed in response to the FTC's latest proposed changes to COPPA-some of them critical of the burdens these changes may place on small businesses such as app developers, while others filed in support of the updates, noting that new definitions and clarifications help strengthen the law's original goal of helping to protect children's privacy online. The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project does not take positions on policy issues, and as such, does not endorse or oppose any of these proposed changes.

Over several years, the Pew Internet Project talked to teens and their parents about issues related to privacy, identity, and information sharing. This summer and early fall, the Pew Internet Project conducted a nationally representative survey of parents and their teenage children that focused on some of these issues. The results from the parents section of the survey are reported here.

In collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, this report also includes quotes gathered through a series of exploratory in-person focus group interviews about privacy and digital media, with a focus on social networking sites (in particular Facebook), conducted by the Berkman Center's Youth and Media Project. Between May and December 2011, the team, led by the project's Director Sandra Cortesi, conducted 16 focus group interviews with roughly 120 students. The focus groups included youth in grades 6-12 from diverse schools and varying socio-economic backgrounds, including Boston, Cambridge, Brookline and New York. This report includes selected quotes from participants that illustrate various youth perspectives toward parent participation in social media spaces. Future reports issued by the Pew Internet Project and the Berkman Center will include extensive reporting of the teen responses to the national survey, as well as additional qualitative research results.

Parental Concerns and Actions
Interaction with strangers worries parents. But they are also anxious about the data advertisers are collecting about their children's online behavior and the broader impact that online activity might have on their child's reputation.
Parents have consistent and relatively high-level concerns about a variety of problems their children face both online and offline. A 2011 Pew Internet & American Life Project survey found that 47% of parents were "very concerned" about their child's exposure to inappropriate content through the internet or cell phones. Likewise, the same study showed 45% of parents expressing high levels of concern about the way "teens in general treat each other online or on their cell phones." Of less concern was the worry that their child's internet or cell phone use was taking time away from face-to-face interactions with friends and family; just 31% said they were "very concerned" about this. Yet, the internet and cell phones are hardly the only-and perhaps not the primary concern-on parents' minds. For example, a recent analysis of the EU Kids Online survey noted that parental anxiety about internet-related risks tended to fall in the middle of the spectrum of concerns and did not outweigh other offline worries such as how their child was doing in school or the potential of physical harm due to a car accident.

Strangers
Parental concerns about their child's interaction online with people they do not know are high. More than half of parents (53%) say they are "very concerned" about how their child interacts online with people they do not know, while another 19% say they are "somewhat concerned." Even higher levels of concern about interaction with strangers online have been reported in similar studies when possible harm to the child is mentioned.

Parental worries about online interaction with people their child does not know are fairly universal across various demographic groups, with a few notable exceptions.

Parents of younger teens (ages 12-13) express greater levels of concern about this issue when compared with parents of older teens (14-17); 63% of parents of younger teens say they are very concerned about interactions with people they do not know online vs. 48% of parents of older teens. And parents living in low-income households (earning less than $30,000 per year) express significantly lower levels of concern about their children's online interactions with people they do not know; just 39% say they are "very concerned" about this issue, compared with about six in ten parents in higher-earning households. Parents of teenage boys and girls express equal levels of concern about their child's interaction with people they do not know online.

Advertiser practices
When asked about the information that advertisers can gather about their child's online behavior, parents' concern levels rival and sometimes even exceed worries about their child's interaction with people they do not know online. While 46% of parents said they were "very concerned" about how much information advertisers can learn about their child's online behavior, another 35% said they were "somewhat" concerned. Taken together, that represents 81% of all parents in our survey. By comparison, the combined levels of parental concern regarding their children's interactions with people they do not know amounts to 72% of all parents.

Parents of younger teens are more likely than those with older teens to express some level of concern about the issue of advertisers tracking their child's online behavior (87% vs. 77%). And parents in the lowest income households are less likely to express concern about advertisers when compared with those in middle-income households; 72% of parents earning less than $30,000 per year express some level of concern, compared with 87% of those with annual household incomes of $30,000 to just under $75,000 per year.

When looking more closely at those who express the highest degree of worry, again, African-American parents stand out; 62% say they are "very concerned" about the information advertisers can gather compared with 47% of white parents. Yet, when combining responses for those who are "very concerned" and "somewhat concerned," there are no significant differences between African-American and white parents; about eight in ten parents in both groups express some level of concern about the information advertisers can learn about their child's online behavior.

Reputation management
Reputation management is a complex affair for anyone online, and teenagers face especially daunting challenges as they navigate the rocky road of adolescent development and youthful blunders in an unforgiving digital environment. Parents are just as concerned about this aspect of online life as they are about their child's interaction with strangers. Some 49% of teens' parents said they were "very" concerned about how their child "manages their reputation online." Another 20% said they were "somewhat" concerned.
Academic and professional opportunities
More specifically, parents were also asked how concerned they were about the way their child's online activity "might affect their future academic or employment opportunities." Some 44% of parents said they were very concerned about these future implications, while 26% said they were somewhat concerned.

African-American parents of teenaged children are considerably more likely to express high levels of concern about the way their child's online activity might affect their future education or job opportunities; 59% said they were "very concerned" about this compared with 41% of white parents. Here again, parents living in lower-income households expressed lower levels of concern about this issue, but the same was true of those living in the highest-income households. Instead, those living in middle-income households (earning between $30,000 and $74,999 per year) are most likely to worry about the future implications of their child's online behavior.
Parents' use of social media grows
One of the major online places where parents and their teens encounter each other is on social networking sites. These are also places where there is concern about the way teens interact with others and where they share information about their lives.

In this survey, we find growing parental adoption of social networking sites (SNS) and growing conversation in families about what happens on those sites.

Among all parents who have a child between the ages of 12-17, 66% now say they use a social networking site, up from 58% in 2011.

Mothers and fathers are equally likely to use social networking sites (69% vs. 63%), but there is great variation according to the parents' ages. For parents under 40, 82% say they use social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, while only 61% of parents over age 40 use the sites. Parents who are college-educated also exhibit higher levels of engagement with social media; 74% of parents who are college grads use social networking sites, compared with 59% of those who have not attended college. In contrast, parents across all income groups are relatively consistent in their adoption of social media.
Teens have mixed feelings about being friends with their parents on Facebook.
Previous research from the Pew Internet Project has shown that when both parents and teens use social networking sites, the vast majority friend each other; in 2011, 80% of parent social media users whose children were also users of social media have friended their child on the sites. However, Berkman's focus group discussions with teens revealed that they have mixed feelings about being friends with their parents on sites like Facebook.

Many teens have a positive attitude about being friends with their parents. Some youth are friends with their parents or their parents' friends on Facebook and don't seem concerned about their parents seeing their posts. In fact, some like being Facebook friends with their parents:

Female (age 13): "I actually really love being friends with my parents because we have like our own group on Facebook, so it's very good, like, to communicate. We don't have to send emails and things like that, just quick links I want to send them or fun things, pictures, things like that you can just send it there. They're so popular on Facebook, it's funny."

[friends with me on Facebook]

[mom]

Male (age 14): "We don't have to worry much about what we put up, because what we put up we know that our family is going to see, so it's like if there's something that we don't want-I remember like my mom told me don't put anything you wouldn't want your grandparents to see or something."

Female (age 13): "I'm also friends with some of my parents' friends. It's cool."

At the same time, some youth seem to prefer not to friend their parents. They friend them only because it's expected of them:

Female (age 13): "My mom got a Facebook when I got a Facebook and she friended me so I guess kind of to keep an eye on me. I don't want to friend her but she like friended me."

[friends with her]

And some youth whose parents are not yet on Facebook seem to be grateful for that:

Female (age 13): "My parents don't have a Facebook. Thank God."

Female (age 14): "The day my father gets on Facebook is the day I'll be out of Facebook."

The reason for not wanting to be friends with their parents on Facebook is not necessarily that they want to hide something from their parents:

Female (age 12): "It's not that you necessarily have anything to hide, it's just everyone's different around their family members than they are with their friends."

Female (age 13): "I know for some of my friends on Facebook, some of their family members are really obnoxious. Someone will change their status update to "going to the park" and then you'll see eighty family members saying, "Have fun at the park."

Yet, some teens who have friended their parents on Facebook restrict their parents' access to information or self-censor the content they post:

Interviewer: "How about on Facebook, are your family members your friends?" Female (age 13): "They are but I have them blocked from my page, so they can't see my page or anything on it."

[...]

Interviewer: "Whatever the reason, the result is you post less stuff to Facebook." Female (age 13): "Yeah." Interviewer: "And it's because in part you don't want people who are older looking at everything you're posting." Female (13): "My family members, yeah." Interviewer: "Is that true for other people?" Other youth (ages 12-13): "Yeah."
59% of the parents of teen social media users say they have talked with their child because they had concerns about something posted to their profile or account. And 39% have helped their child with privacy settings.
In our 2011 survey, we found that 87% of parents of online teens said they had talked with their teen about the things he or she had been doing online. Those discussions could have been positive, negative or neutral, and they could have referenced a wide array of online activity. In the latest survey, we wanted to ask more specifically about social media and the extent to which conversations were being prompted by concerns about something posted to the teen's profile or account.

It turns out that considerable numbers of parents have actively intervened in their child's social networking environment. Six in ten (59%) parents of teen social network users say they have talked with their teen because they had concerns about something that was posted to their child's profile or account. What is most striking about the findings for this question is the lack of variation across groups; these conversations prompted by concerns over social media content are equally prevalent among a wide array of parents from different backgrounds. Less surprising is the fact that parents who use social media themselves are more likely than non-users to have these conversations with their children (65% vs. 45%).

Another kind of intervention relates to privacy settings. Some 39% of parents who have a child that uses social network sites say they have helped their child set up privacy settings for their account. Parents of younger teens who use social media are far more engaged in helping with privacy settings; 49% of parents of younger teens have assisted with privacy settings for their child's account, compared with 35% of parents of older teens. Most of this variation is due to parents of 12-year-olds. There are no significant differences according to the gender of the child.

White parents are almost twice as likely as African-American parents to help their child set up privacy settings (44% vs. 23%). Parents living in the highest-income households (earning $75,000 or more per year) are more likely than those in the lowest-income households (earning less than $30,000 per year) to say that they have helped their child with privacy settings on a social network site (44% vs. 27%).

Half of parents who are social media users have commented or responded directly to something posted on their child's social network profile.
Whether driven by concerns or a desire to show approval or support, 50% of parents who use social media (and also have teens who use the sites) say they have commented or responded directly to something that was posted to their child's profile or account. Mothers and fathers are equally likely to engage with their child's profile in this way. Similarly, there are no clear variations by the age or gender of the child or across various socio-economic groups.
Half of parents of online teens say they use parental controls and other means of blocking, filtering or monitoring their child's behavior
In the latest survey, 50% of parents with online teens said they use parental controls or some other means of blocking, filtering or monitoring their child's online activity. That represents a statistically insignificant difference from the 54% who reported doing so in 2011. As we have noted in previous reports, overall, parents are more likely to favor less technical steps for monitoring their child's online behavior, such as checking to see what websites their child has visited or what information is available online about their child.

Use of parental controls is much higher among white parents, those who have attended college, and those living in households earning more than $30,000 per year. All of these trends are consistent with the previous survey, except for a notable decrease in usage among African-American parents. In 2011, African-American parents were just as likely as white parents to say they use parental controls (61% vs. 58%). In the 2012 survey, they were half as likely to report use of these controls (31% vs. 59%).

Parents of younger teens (12-13) are considerably more likely than parents of older teens (14-17) to use technical tools like blocking, filtering and monitoring (61% vs. 45%). Parents of younger teen girls are among the most likely to employ parental controls; fully 65% do so. These variations according to the age of the child also represent a shift from the previous survey; in 2011, parents of younger and older teens were equally likely to use controls.

Looking at the parent's age, there are no notable differences in the likelihood that they will use parental controls. However, parents who are social media users are more likely than non-social media users to say they employ some form of parental controls (54% vs. 43%).
Four in ten parents of online teens have searched for their child's name online to see what information is available about them.
Some 42% of parents of online teens say they have searched for their child's name online to see what information is available about them. Previous surveys have indicated that a majority of parents have "checked to see what information is available online" about their child, but this could involve everything from viewing private websites associated with a child's school to checking Facebook profiles. Those who have gone so far as to type their child's name into a search engine to see what results may be available to a wider public represent a more modest segment of parents.

Fathers and mothers are equally likely to have searched for their child's name online, as are parents of different ages. However, when it comes to the age of the child, the most notable shift happens at age 17, when most teens (and parents) are negotiating the college admissions process. Among parents with a 17-year-old child, 61% say they have searched for their child's name online to see what information is available about them.

44% of parents of online teens say they have read a privacy policy for a website or social network their child was using
Almost half (44%) of parents of online teens say they have read a privacy policy for a site their child was using. Among parents of younger teens (ages 12-13), 46% say they have read a privacy policy for a site their child visited. Parents who have not attended college report lower levels of reading; just 33% of parents with a high school degree or less say they have read a policy for a site their child was using, compared with 53% of those with at least some college education. Parents who use social media themselves are also more likely than non-users to read privacy policies on the sites their children are using (51% vs. 31%). Parents who express some level of concern about how much information advertisers can learn about their child's behavior online are more likely than those who are "not at all" or "not too" concerned to read privacy policies (47% vs. 33%).

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Introduction There is a growing policy discussion about how government should act in an environment in which personal information-about both children and

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4. The High Cost of a Phone-Based Childhood

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4. The High Cost of a Phone-Based Childhood

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Phone-based childhood is much less healthy than in person meeting, and Gen Z has been doing much less of the latter.

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The cost of anything is the amount of life that is exchanged for it, whether it be immediately or in the long run. - Henry David Thoreau in Walden

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Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Walden, or, Life in the Woods. New York :Vintage Books/The Library of America, 1991.

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American teens spend five hours a day on social media, with 7-9 hours total screentime. The numbers are higher for single-parent, low-income, and some minority families

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51% of U.S. teenagers spend at least four hours daily on social media

Older teens, girls exceed the overall average in social media time

Personality traits, parental restrictions are key factors in teens’ use

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Teens Spend Average of 4.8 Hours on Social Media Per Day

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U.S. teens average nearly five hours a day on social media. Personality traits and parental restrictions greatly affect teen social media usage patterns.

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Between 2019 and 2021, the total amount of screen media used each day went from 4:44 to 5:33 among tweens, and from 7:22 to 8:39 among teens. This is a much faster increase in just two years than was seen in the previous four years.

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Rideout, V., Peebles, A., Mann, S., & Robb, M. B. (2022). Common Sense census: Media use by tweens and teens, 2021. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

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Given the sociodemographic differences in problematic screen use, digital literacy education strategies can focus on at-risk populations, encourage targeted counseling by pediatricians, and adapt family media use plans for diverse backgrounds.

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Nagata, J.M., Singh, G., Sajjad, O.M. et al. Correction: Social epidemiology of early adolescent problematic screen use in the United States. Pediatr Res 92, 1485–1486 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-022-02311-5

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This is an updated, corrected verson of the article Haidt used.

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Correction: Social epidemiology of early adolescent problematic screen use in the United States - Pediatric Research

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Pediatric Research - Correction: Social epidemiology of early adolescent problematic screen use in the United States

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An economist term which details that choosing an opportunity has a cost of not choosing the alternatives

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A condition in which someone feels compelled to a specific drug or activity

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To have a strong effect on a group of people.

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Although cigarettes and video games are both addictive, the difference is that the internet is almost required to use and even pressured by others..