Stop Giving Smartphone to Your Kids

Stop Giving Smartphone to Your Kids

A phone-based childhood is not a human childhood. Kids are going to miss out on most of the things they need.

We can’t just take away the devices and say, “Okay, you’re an only child. Sit at home, read books, play guitar.” They could do that a little bit, but we have to give them back each other. We have to give them back fun. We have to give them back thrilling adventure, hanging out, riding bicycles.

If we do that, the rates of anxiety and depression will go down. Kids will have more slow dopamine. It won’t be all quick dopamine all day long. Test scores will stop dropping. This is important. Test scores in the United States actually rose, academic ability actually rose from the 70s through 2012 and then it began to drop. It dropped more during COVID, but the drop didn’t start in 2020. It started in 2012. So, our young people are less happy, more anxious and depressed. They know less. Their attention is fragmented. They’re lonely and they feel that their life is pointless.

We’ve got to stop. We’ve got to stop what we’re doing.