Decline in independence and play

1. Children need to experience risk-taking and failure in order to grow as a person, which is heightened with unsupervised play in safe outdoor environments

2. Due to the rising competition for college admissions and the earlier helpful neighbor mindset crumbling into a distrustful independent mindset made for parents to be overprotective of their children

3. The outdoor childhood that many generations were raised with was replaced with an indoor technology surrounded environment which limited social interactions with others.

Overprotective

• They tend to protect someone excessively to the point of detriment, such as children. To “protect” their children, they would put them into adult-run activities to help them move forward, unbeknownst to them, because they would be hurting their kids’ social intelligence/cues.

Social withdrawal 

• Because of the lack of in-person social interactions, you will retract into being lonely and unable to communicate with others properly. Because social media thrives on overdosing kids on dopamine, it's harder for kids to find normal face-to-face activities as fun. Ultimately leading them to withdraw and only focus on their online lives with the low cost high reward of a response.

Opportunity Cost

• the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. Schools incorporate as much technology as they can within the 8-hour day, and at home, children are still on their phones and laptops playing games and texting, which ultimately means a loss of face-to-face connection and interactions.

Collective action problem

• Everyone would be better off with a certain decision but becomes worse off because no one moves to change it. Many agree that they do not want social media, but because everyone else is on social media, they do not want to feel left out.

Fragmented Attention

• The inability to focus on one thing because of the constant want of stimulation. Many children, even if they are working, will be waiting for that one ping to pick their phone up, needing the short-term satisfaction of responding back.

Technology has overtaken most of our lives and several hours a day including the one im using right now to finish this!

The time spent online is at the detriment of our social interaction, mental and physical health, and the value of real life connections.

We lose key social cues due to the lack of face to face interaction, and online relationships are more disposable as you could block someone compared to real life.

“Time with friends began decreasing for young people in 2000s but the drop accelerated in the 2010s” (Haidt 25)

"American teens spend about 5 hours a day just on social media platforms" (Haidt 21)

Because of the short attention span, it is hard for adolescents to focus on work with their biggest distraction sitting on their desk

Social media and video games give kids an intense amount of dopamine, which makes them withdraw when they do not have the same amount of stimulation as normal activities. 

Culture has fallen apart as teenagers have taken to learning from strangers, and doing so they lose their touch from reality and feel empty

"Typical adolescent gets 237 notifications a day" (Haidt 32)

"2-15% of adolescents engage in 'problematic social media use' such as preoccupation, withdrawal symptoms, and neglect in other areas of life" (Haidt 34)

Social media introduces peer pressure of not being a part of what everyone else is this FOMO makes those want to join social media so they aren’t left behind. 

Those who consciously choose to not join will be isolated from their peers for not understanding or enjoying the same activities or inside jokes of others

Most teenagers would love to be social media free if it meant their peers would because they also understand at some level of the harm they face 

No phones before high school leads to children being able to develop a sense of identity 

No social media before 16 can let children develop strength against peer pressure and the endless consumption 

Phone-free schools force children to pay attention to their lessons and forge bonds with other kids making for a more tight-knit community and higher grades

With more independence, children will be able to grow and take risks that will make them strong-willed and able to appreciate both the digital and real world.

"Now how much would you have to be paid to deactivate, if most others did so? The answer, on average, was less than zero" (Haidt 45)

depression and anxiety rates rose by more than 50% from 2010-2019 (Haidt 1)

suicide rates increase approx 48% for those ages 10-19 (Haidt 1)

He says he doesnt wanna overstate the risks as most teens dont become addicted to their phones and video games

Parents, like him, first believed that introducing technology at an early stage would further their children's careers/life.