Friends:

After a year of chasing deadlines and developing a truly unhealthy screen/life balance for myself, I could not be more thrilled to announce that The Amazing Generation — the new book for kids that I co-authored with Jonathan Haidt — is finally here!

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As you may already know, The Amazing Generation was inspired by Jon’s mega-bestseller, The Anxious Generation, but is written specifically for 4th and 7th graders. The goal of the book is to convince readers to decide for themselves not to allow their lives to be controlled by screens.

It was a tough challenge. As you no doubt know, 4th and 7th graders are extremely different in terms of their reading abilities, attention spans, and brain development, which meant that we needed to somehow create a book that worked on multiple levels at once (and that didn’t sound condescending or cheesy). We also wanted the book to feel fun to read, and to somehow convey the dangers posed by social media, smartphones, video games and addictive algorithms in a way that felt inspiring and empowering, rather than like two old people lecturing kids about screens.

We decided to base The Amazing Generation on what we call “The Rebels’ Code,” a simple mantra that a growing number of young people are deciding to follow for themselves and that, if adopted en masse, could really turn the tables on Big Tech.

The book is full-color and packed with illustrations and a mini graphic novel by Cynthia Yuan Cheng, a brilliant artist whose work makes the book a delight to flip through and read — and whose infographics help make some of the book’s more complicated concepts easier to grasp.

We also used playfulness—conveyed here via custom lettering by Mary Kate McDevitt — to encourage readers of all ages to consider how much of their time they’re spending on screens. (Several friends whose kids have seen early copies of the book report that this particular page has already been used against them by their kids—a role reversal that levels the playing field and can lead to constructive conversations about how to handle technology as a family.)

We also incorporated lots of quotes from real teenagers and young adults about their own experiences with smartphones and social media, and what advice they’d like to pass on to younger kids. To me, this is one of the most poignant and moving aspects of the whole book.

As might not surprise you, this was not an easy book to write. There were so many moving pieces to keep track of and orchestrate, and so many elements to design and lay out on the page. (Special thanks to art director Maya Tatsukawa and our editor, Lauri Hornik for making it all happen — as well as to my own team and the internal TAG team for their behind-the-scenes work.) We ran focus groups of kids in our target demographic; we had experts in childhood development review the manuscript—at times, it felt like we would never possibly meet our deadline. But we did, and here we are!

But it’s one thing to show the book to adults. It’s another thing entirely to show the book to kids. After all, as anyone who’s spent time around 9-12 year olds knows, their BS meters are extremely high, and they can smell condescension (and hypocrisy) from a mile away. That’s part of the reason I was so excited — but also so nervous — to do a pre-launch presentation about the book in front of about 100 fourth and fifth graders a few weeks ago. It was the first true litmus test of whether our approach worked.

I was blown away by how engaged the kids were and how insightful their questions and comments were. (Seriously, kids are way more insightful about technology than most adults give them credit for.) What was supposed to be a forty minute presentation stretched more than an hour because the kids had so much to say — and it gave me hope: if kids decide that they don’t want to spend all their time on smartphones; if they decide that social media is uncool (and if adults respond by helping them to have more real-life independence, fun, and freedom), then there is a real chance that we can take back childhood from Big Tech.

But don’t take my word for it. Below are a few sample thank you notes I received from the kids afterwards.

I’ve subsequently heard from journalists and friends who received advanced copies that they’ve caught their kids reading the book totally on their own (including one third grader who called to tell me that she had read the book an astonishing three times). I can’t possibly expect every kid to have this reaction, but wow, does it feel good to know that real kids are responding in this way. After all, as I’ve expressed before, this is probably the most intensely personal project I’ve ever worked on: my own daughter is ten, and I truly do see The Amazing Generation as my best shot at helping to roll back the phone-based childhood and save her generation from Big Tech. That’s why I’m so grateful to all of you who have already pre-ordered the book and/or shared it with your friends.

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And now, about that launch party. . . .

Jon and I may have written The Amazing Generation, but books are powerless unless people actually read and take action on them. Which is to say: they’re powerless without YOU! That’s why we’re so excited to invite you to celebrate the book’s launch with us.

On Wednesday, January 7th from 6-7pm ET, Gayle King will be hosting a conversation between me, Jon, and special guests (including Amy Schumer — and others I don’t even know about yet!). It’s free to attend, and if you can’t make it in person, don’t worry: there’ll be a recording available afterwards. You can sign up here:

RSVP for the Party

Lastly: may I ask you a favor?

If you ordered the book—and if you and your kids like it—I would be honored and grateful if you would take the time this week to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or your favorite bookseller’s site.

I ask because as I learned with one of my previous books, Vitamania (which is about the history of vitamins and supplements), when you write about a big industry, one of their go-to tactics is to seed negative reviews about the book soon after its launch, to turn away potential readers (for example, by saying the book is lame and that no kids would ever want to read it). Hopefully this won’t happen, but just in case, it would be great to have your help.

And with that, I shall end this extremely long email. Here’s to scrolling less, living more, and helping our kids become amazing!

Catherine Price

Co-author of The Amazing Generation and author of The Power of Fun, Vitamania, and How to Break Up With Your Phone

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PS: Grown-ups, I have not forgotten about us! I’ll be running the 2nd annual Phone Breakup February Challenge in, well, February. Stay tuned (and subscribe) for details. . . .

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Our first appearance on The Today Show:

Many kids, understandably, are pushing for smartphones.

And many parents are considering saying yes, despite their concerns, in part because they don’t realize that there are other options available.

Before you do so, I encourage you to read this post and share it with friends. Because guess what? As I learned during my research for How to Break Up With Your Phone and The Amazing Generation, there are other options — options that can help you and your friends resist giving your kids smartphones before (at least) high school, or access to social media before they’re (at least) sixteen.

Consider a smartphone alternative

I’m talking about smartphone alternatives: devices that look like smartphones but that don’t provide access to the internet or social media. These devices are cheaper than iPhones and less addicting and less distracting and don’t give your child access to social media or pornography. Many also offer additional features, such as location tracking, or the ability to monitor your child’s contacts, text messages and phone calls.

In short, they can help you give your child more real-world independence (and help you keep track of and communicate with your kid) without giving your child access to the full internet or social media—and without giving the entire internet (and all its sexual predators and drug sellers) access to your child. Many of these phones also allow you to customize their features based on how old your child is and what you want them to be able to do, which is a great way to help your child learn and practice how to use a phone (and the internet) safely, instead of just throwing them into the deep end and hoping that they learn how to swim.

How to Choose a Phone

I recommend that you start by asking yourself why you’re considering getting a phone for your child. More specifically:

• What do you want them to be able to do? (For example: call or text you or their friends, use Google Maps, take photos, use ride share apps, listen to music, etc.)

• What do you not want them to be able to do? (For example: access social media or pornography, contact—or be contacted by—strangers, predators, or drug dealers, participate in group chats, send photos, etc.)

• What do you want to be able to do? (For example: call and text them, track their location, etc.)

Once you’re clear on your goals, the next step is to . . .

Consider Your Options

If you’re looking for a “smartphone” with training wheels (and no social media and no/limited internet access):

Consider the Troomi, Pinwheel, Bark, or Gabb phones. They’re all actual smartphones (mostly Samsung models), but with their own operating systems. None of them allows access to social media apps; their level of possible internet access varies, as do their 3rd party app libraries and parental controls.

If you’re thinking of a smart watch:

The Gizmo (also available without a camera), the Garmin Bounce, the Troomi watch, and the Gabb Watch 3 are all great non-Apple watch options that do let you call/text/track your kid but that don’t offer internet access (unlike the Apple Watch). But a word of caution about smart watches: They can become incredibly distracting if your kid gets involved in a group chat, because every new message will vibrate directly on their wrist.

If Your Kid Only Occasionally Needs a Phone

If you’re just looking for a way to give your younger child(ren) a bit more independence out of the house, don’t buy them their own phone(s); buy a family “loaner” phone. Keep it in the house in a central location, and then just lend it out as needed. For example, if your kid is going to weekend sports practice, they take the phone with them, and then just return it when they’re done. Consider a flip phone (a lot of people like the CAT S22, though it does have an internet browser), an old smartphone that you’ve “Bricked” (see below), or the extremely minimal Light Phone.

If your kid already has a smartphone and you want more parental controls (but can’t deal with the thought of taking the smartphone away)—or if they have their own iPad or tablet:

Sign up for a parental control add-on plan. They allow you to do things like limit access to certain apps and websites, set a schedule for when the phone can access the internet, turn off your entire home’s internet access at a certain time each night, track location, monitor calls and texts, monitor driving behavior and more.

You could subscribe to a third-party provider, such as Bark or Canopy.

Or you can also often get a parental control plan from your cell service provider—e.g. Verizon’s “Smart Family” add-on, AT&T’s “Secure Family” add-on, or T-Mobile’s “Mobile Family” add-on.

If you want to truly get creative, you could also buy a Brick (use SCREENLIFEBALANCE10 for 10% off), which is a device that allows you to choose which apps you want to allow on the smartphone and block everything else (there’s even a workaround that allows you to block Safari). Theoretically you could set up an old iPhone to only allow access to a handful of apps and block everything else, including social media and the app store.

Want More Detailed Info?

Last winter, I spent an obscene amount of time putting together a detailed guide to these smartphone alternatives. I thought it would be useful to share it with you at the beginning of the school year.

You can read my free, condensed version of the report here.

For the full report, please become a paid subscriber and then visit that same link—Substack will “unlock” the content for you. (The round-up took a ton of work, which is why the full thing is behind a paywall.)

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Don’t Go It Alone

As you make your choice, be sure to talk to the parents of your friends’ kids and ask if they will commit to holding off on smartphones as well. Why is this important? Because one of the main reasons parents get their kids smartphones is because they don’t want them to feel left out. The easiest way to avoid that is to convince other parents to delay getting their kids smartphones, too. I also recommend watching and sharing this short talk by Seán Killingsworth, founder of the Reconnect Movement. He makes the point that instead of worrying about what our kids will miss out on if we don’t give them smartphones, we should worry about what they will miss out on if we do—which is to say, the ability to have friendships and experiences in real life. This is an important point that’s often missing from the discussion about if/when to get kids phones.

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Remember: millions of parents are theoretically on board with the idea of delaying kids’ access to smartphones till at least high school, and social media till they’re at least sixteen. But these new norms will only become a reality if we all take action together.

To scrolling less, living more, and holding the line,

Catherine Price

PS: Do you have any other tips or recommendations?

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PPS: In case you missed it. . .

Check out my recent post about the benefits of getting a (cheap) land line for your family, and the joys of encouraging your kids to have real pen pals. Also, check out my podcast interview with about how to replace phone time with play time, as well as her own experiences raising her three kids in a low-tech home.

PPPS: Pre-order The Amazing Generation, my new book for tweens!

I’ve teamed up with Jonathan Haidt to write a new book specifically for tweens and young teens called The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World. Inspired by Jon’s mega-bestseller, The Anxious Generation, it’s designed to empower young people to stand up for themselves by choosing a life not dominated by screens. It comes out December 30, but you can pre-order your copy now!

So I decided to go full Catherine on it, and ended up essentially doing a research report on smartphone alternatives (yes, I also am the same person who wrote a book about fun—irony noted). I reached out to the companies to get samples of the phones, and then spent a lot of time on the internet and with their customer support teams figuring out each phone’s features. This post is the result.

Here are my current thoughts on how to decide what your child’s first phone should be (hint: it probably should not be a smartphone!). I hope you find it helpful—and if you do, please subscribe and share.

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To scrolling less and living more,

Catherine Price

First, if you are considering getting your child a phone, ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you ready for your child to have access to the entire internet?

2. Are you ready for the entire internet to have access to your child?

If your answer is “no” to either question, then do not get your kid a smartphone. End stop.

Why? Because a smartphone is not just a communication device. It’s a portal to the entire internet that we carry around in our pockets.

This is an important distinction because what I hear from other parents is that most of the benefits that come from giving kids their first phones—e.g. synchronous communication with friends and family and giving them more independence in daily life—don’t require unfettered internet access.

Most of the risks, on the other hand—e.g. bullying, harassment, mental health challenges, addiction, vulnerability to predators, body image issues, time-wasting, access to violent or pornograpic content, etc—come from giving kids unfettered access to the internet (and internet-powered apps that are deliberately designed to hook us, such as social media). In other words, they come via smartphones.

The question, then, is whether there is a way to give our children access to the positive aspects of technology (when it becomes age-appropriate and necessary to do so) while also keeping them mentally and physically safe. And as they grow older, how do we teach them to navigate the internet safely and develop a healthy long-term relationship with devices?

So here’s good news: there IS a way! In fact, there is an entire market of smartphone alternatives out there (and parental control plans for pre-existing smartphones) that can help us help our kids.

The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Guide to Smartphone Alternatives

First, I recommend putting off getting your child a phone until it is truly necessary for them to have a communication device (which usually coincides with when they’re leaving the house alone). Among other reasons? Childhood is already too short!

When the time does come to get your child a phone, please keep in mind that you do not need to jump directly from 0 to a smartphone. Instead, there’s a growing number of smartphone alternatives out there, and chances are that one of them will meet your needs.

Interestingly, most (if not all) of these are cheaper than an iPhone or full-featured Android, even when you take their subscriptions into account. And there’s a whole range of options, from phones and watches with extremely limited functionality to phones that actually look like smartphones (helpful for older kids), but whose operating systems don’t provide access to the internet or social media. Some also offer additional useful guardrails — for example, the ability to monitor your child’s contacts, text messages and phone calls, and/or restrict (or enable) their ability to send photos along with their messages.

Note that all of these options require a bit more work to set up than say, an iPhone, which is deliberately designed to be as friction-less as possible—but in my opinion, their extra features and protections make it worth it.

I recommend getting together with the parents of your kids’ friends (and/or the school administration) to discuss some of these options—there’s real strength in numbers, and if you can get enough people on board at an early enough age, then you’ll greatly reduce the risk of FOMO-induced peer pressure.

When it comes to getting your own kid’s buy-in, one idea is to choose two or three options from the list of smartphone alternatives that you would be comfortable with, and give them the opportunity to pick the one they like the best. (A little bit of control can go a long way.)

And if your kid already has a smartphone? Don’t despair. If you don’t want to go with the nuclear option (i.e. taking your kid’s smartphone and replacing it with one of these alternatives — though, given that you’re the one paying for the service plan, this is an option), check this out: many service providers, including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, have parental control add-on plans that offer a lot more protections and features than Apple and Android’s operating systems. These are great options if your child already has a smartphone but you’d like more robust parental controls.

And now!

The Summary of Smartphone Alternatives:

If you just want to be able to call or text your kid (and don’t need location tracking–or for them to “own” their own phone):

Consider a modern flip phone, such as the Alcatel Go Flip 3, or the extremely minimal Light Phone II.

If you just want to be able to call/text your kid and/or know where they are:

Consider a watch, such as the Gizmo, the Garmin Bounce or the Gabb Watch 3.

If you’re looking for a “smartphone” with training wheels (and no social media and no/limited internet access):

Consider the Troomi, Pinwheel, or Gabb phones. They’re all actual smartphones (mostly Samsung models), but with their own operating systems. None of them provide access to social media apps; their level of possible internet access varies (as do their 3rd party app libraries and parental controls; read my full roundups for more info).

If your kid already has a smartphone and you want more parental controls (but can’t deal with the thought of taking the smartphone away)—OR if your kid wants nothing to do with Android and is like, “OMG I neeeeed an iPhone”:

Sign up for a parental control add-on plan.

You could subscribe to a third-party provider, such as Bark or Canopy.

Or you can also often get a parental control plan from your cell service provider—e.g. Verizon’s “Smart Family” add-on, AT&T’s “Secure Family” add-on, or T-Mobile’s “Mobile Family” add-on. They allow you to do things like limit access to certain apps and websites, set a schedule for when the phone can access the internet, track location, monitor calls and texts, monitor driving behavior and more. I personally didn’t even know these plans existed until recently and they seem like exactly what many parents are looking for.

If you’d like to have a piece of wood that looks like a phone:

Shortly after How to Break Up With Your Phone came out, my friend John, who’s a woodworker and builder, made me a present: a handmade walnut “phone.” We decided to call it a “faux phone” (or a “worry phone” — a play on “worry stone” — since it’s extremely smooth to the touch and soothing to “scroll” on) and I always joked that I wanted to take it to an office building and ride up and down on the elevator while “scrolling” on it, just to see if anyone else would notice. I also am convinced that John could pay for one of his children’s college educations by selling these on the internet. (If you’re interested, reply to this email and I’ll forward it to him!)

Someone recently asked me how this phone “worked,” which amused me greatly, given that it is literally a piece of wood.

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Get the Detailed Report:

Please become a paid subscriber to get immediate access to my thorough run-down of these phones and their features, including information on each phone and watch’s:

• location tracking abilities

• internet and social media access

• control and monitoring options for phone calls and text messages (e.g. the ability to restrict or monitor group and image texting and the ability to create a list of “approved” contacts)

• app libraries (or lack thereof)

• options for setting schedules and time limits for particular apps

• service plan info

• my thoughts on using Apple watches as smartphone alternatives

I’ve also included some coupon codes for Gabb, Troomi and Pinwheel (some of which are worth almost as much as a year’s subscription to this Substack) — and am working on getting additional discounts.

By becoming a paid subscriber, you not only get access to the full rundowns, but you will also be supporting my research and work (this one in particular took a long time) — and making it possible for me to provide more information like this in the future.

The Detailed Guide to Smartphone Alternatives

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Hi everyone! Catherine Price here, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone, coach for The Guardian’s “Reclaim Your Brain” email series, and advocate for screen/life balance.

In the years since How to Break Up With Your Phone was published, I’ve had the opportunity to share my work with outlets and audiences including The New York Times, NPR, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Guardian, The Independent, Jon Favreau, Sanjay Gupta, Oprah Winfrey, and the Surgeon General of the United States, among others. I’ve spoken to audiences from all sorts of industries, from tech to finance to education to government.

Most importantly, I’ve also had the privilege of hearing directly from thousands of readers about the negative effects that technology has had on them, and how “breaking up” with their phones—and creating new, healthier relationships with their devices—has positively affected their lives.

Thanks so much for your interest in taking steps to help our kids.

Here are some commonly requested resources, including information about smartphone alternatives, parental control settings, and app-blocking apps and devices.

I’ve also included a set of family guidelines and resources and links to my talk about kids, smartphones and social media, as well as more information about why it’s so important to rethink our approach to kids and technology..

Feel free to share any and all of these resources with anyone you’d like.

And to stay up-to-date with my writing on this subject, be sure to subscribe.

Printable/Shareable Guidelines and Resources

Here’s a google doc I put together for parents of my daughter’s school with some family guidelines. You can also check out this post I wrote for Jon Haidt’s Substack newsletter, After Babel.

Google Doc of Suggested Guidelines

Phone-Free Schools Resources

When we get smartphones out of schools from bell to bell (meaning for the entirety of the school day, including lunch, recess, and the transitions between classes), we are giving them 7 to 8 hours of freedom from incessant distractions and social pressure to be on their phones. To make advocacy easier, here are three Phone-Free Schools Action kits that I helped create for for The Anxious Generation website: one for parents, one for school administrators, and one for teachers and educators. In addition, I highly recommend downloading the Phone-Free Schools Movement's Phone-Free School Administrator Toolkit—it's a detailed, step-by-step guide for how to roll out a phone-free policy at your school (and is the closest I’ve found to a plug-and-play solution).

Suggested Smartphone/Social Media Roadmap:

As a reminder, I recommend following these steps:

1. Delay smartphones for as long as possible (until at least high school, but ideally until at least 16)

2. Start with a family “loaner” phone

3. When it’s time for your kid to have their own phone, start with a smartphone alternative

4. No social media until at least 16

Smartphone Alternatives:

Deciding not to give your kids smartphones doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get them any phone; it just means not giving them a phone that comes with social media and unfettered access to the internet. Thankfully, there are a lot of great smartphone alternatives on the market.

• Alcatel Flip Phone (this is a great option for a family “loaner” phone)

• Tello (service provider for Alcatel — they have a “pay as you go” plan, in addition to a more traditional monthly plan)

• Gizmo Watch (Verizon)

• Gabb Wireless Watch

• Gabb Wireless Phone

• Garmin Watch

• Pinwheel Phone

• Troomi Phone

• Bark Phone

Here’s a comprehensive guide that I put together that describes many of the features of these particular phones (I didn’t get to the Bark or the Garmin yet!)

3rd Party Tools & Solutions:

The Brick and Unpluq are cool gadgets that let you block all apps on your phone except for the ones you choose to allow — which is great if, say, you want your kid to only be able to use a phone to listen to podcasts or audio books, or if you want to take a break from your own phone for a while! (Note: the Brick does NOT work for iPads yet, unfortunately.)

There are also great app-blocking apps, including Freedom, ScreenZen, and Opal.

I reached out to a few of these companies and got discount codes, which you can find in this post (along with some additional information about these solutions). Bottom line: they’re all MUCH better than Apple’s Screen Time!

Parental Control Apps and Service Plans

You may also want to consider signing up for one of these “family protection plans,” offered by independent companies and as add-ons by cell/internet service providers, that have much more robust safety features and parental controls than the native parental control options on iPhones/Androids (more on which below). For example, you can set schedules for when certain apps are (and are not) available, or even set a schedule for times when internet access is available at your house.

• Canopy

• Bark

• Verizon Smart Family

• T-Moblie Family Mode

• ATT Secure Family App

Kids, Smartphones and Social Media: The Risks and the Solutions

The following is a talk I did for parents at my daughter’s school. Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, referred to it as “the talk every parent should watch” and “the video you should share with the parents of your kids’ friends.” Please feel free to do so! (The more people hear its message, the better.)

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Guides to Parental Controls:

If your child(ren) has access to any other internet-enabled device (like an iPad), I recommend taking the time to learn about and set up parental controls for individual apps and devices (which are annoying and often easy for kids to get around, but we have to try!).

These are a few that I found — if you know of more, please tell me about them in a comment. It takes a village!

Comprehensive guide to parental controls on a wide variety of devices <—- Start here!!!

The New Mexico Department of Justice has put together a series of guides to privacy settings on some of the most popular social media apps and gaming platforms (scroll down on the page).

Comcast Parental Control Guide for XFinity

Common Sense Media’s Parent Resource Page

Common Sense Media “Ultimate Guide to Fortnite”

iOS:

• How to Set Up Parental Controls With Family Sharing on iPhone (you’ll need to add your child to Family Sharing first)

• How to Use Parental Controls on Your Child’s iPhone or iPad (this article lists all the iOS parental control features in one handy place)

• How to Require Permission Before Your Child Downloads an App (note that if an app was previously installed and then was deleted, your child may be able to reinstall it without your permission)

• Common Ways That Your Child Might Be Getting Around Parental Control & Screen Time Restrictions

Android:

• How to Get Started With Google’s Family Link (If your child has a Google device or account, your first step should be to download the Family Link app, which will allow you to monitor and set limits for their online activities)

• How to Set Up Parental Controls on Google Play (note that Google’s parental controls don't prevent restricted content as a search result or accessed through a direct link)

• How to Manage Your Child’s Screen Time (including information on how to set daily and weekly screen time limits—both for overall screen time and for particular apps—and schedule “down times”)

• How Do Kids Bypass Google’s Family Link? (Guess what: they can, and they do—sometimes in exceptionally clever ways!)

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Additional Resources:

How to Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price (i.e. me) — an easy-to-read (appropriate for 13-year-olds through adults) look at why our phones and apps are designed to hook us and what our screen time is doing to us, coupled with a 30-day plan to take back control. It’s designed to help people of all ages create healthier relationships with technology and devices, and is a great thing to do as a family.

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (book making the case that we should roll back the “phone-based” childhood and restore the “play-based” childhood) - I’ve started directly collaborating with his team and am helping them build out resources for parents and school administrators. (Children’s edition coming fall of 2025!)

After Babel — Jon Haidt’s Substack newsletter, with lots of articles about the evidence behind the connection between social media and youth mental health. Also features posts by a young woman named Freya India, who writes compelling essays from her perspective as a member of Gen Z. I highly recommend subscribing.

ScreenStrong — great resource for parents whose kids are struggling with gaming (also has a great textbook about screen time and brain development)

Childhood Unplugged — excellent (and short!) book by Katherine Martinko about her own family’s practice of digital minimalism. It’s both philosophical and packed with practical advice.

Dr. Becky’s guide to setting boundaries as a parent (even before smartphones are an issue!)

NPR article about the redacted documents from the October 2024 lawsuits against TikTok (truly shocking)

Wall Street Journal video expose on how TikTok’s algorithm figures you out — parents, you need to watch this

Video of Sean Parker (first president of Facebook) and Chamath Palihapitiya (former VP of user growth at Facebook) talking about the platforms they created (this is the source of the clips I played in the talk)

FBI PSA about sextortion schemes on Roblox and other multiplayer games

Chimpanzee using Instagram

Article about False Promises of Ed-Tech from After Babel (Jon Haidt’s substack newsletter)

Article about how Ed-Tech has failed from After Babel

Ed-Tech Triangle from Everyschool.org - tool to help school administrators and teachers evaluate which sorts of technology to allow in the classroom

Dino Ambrosi TEDx talk, “The Battle for Your Time: Exposing the Costs of Social Media” (in which he estimates that the average 18-year-old is on track to spend 93 percent of their remaining leisure time on a screen

“Family Media Plan” interactive tool from the American Academy of Pediatrics (helps you create a family plan for screen time limits, boundaries, etc)

Op-Ed by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about why he’s calling for a warning label to be put on social media (akin to cigarettes)

Mark Zuckerberg interview on The Verge

My Substack post about Instagram’s Teen Accounts

“Gen Z has regrets”op-ed in the New. York Times about Gen Z’s feelings about social media platforms

Legal Decision revealing some of the tactics social media companies have employed to target schools and get kids in school to use social media (and some of the alleged effects that kids’ social media “addiction” has had on schools)

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First, as I mentioned earlier this week, the United States House of Representatives is currently considering whether to pass a piece of legislation (already passed by the Senate in a wonderfully bipartisan vote of 91-3) called KOSPA. Short for the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, it’s the first piece of legislation in over 25 years that specifically addresses how to keep children safe online. Big Tech is doing its best to water it down (and in some cases to block it entirely) — and we need to speak up.

If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to use this tool — created by FairPlayForKids.org — to contact your representative and ask them to support the strongest possible version of KOSPA (currently, the strongest version is the Senate version). It takes about 3 minutes total, and truly could make a difference — please do it today!

Contact Your Representative

(I was so eager to get this message out earlier this week that I sent a newsletter after business hours, meaning that some of you may not have actually gotten through to your Representative’s office — so let’s try that again!)

And now, on to:

Instagram’s New Teen Accounts

In what surely must be a complete and total coincidence, on the very same day that a House committee was marking up KOSPA, Instagram announced the launch of Teen Accounts for Instagram, with features designed to protect teenagers (and younger kids who aren’t supposed to be on the platform to begin with) from some of the darker aspects of Instagram, such as, oh, I dunno, bullying, harassment, inappropriate content, compulsive use, and unwanted sexual advances from pedophiles and strangers.

I’ll admit, I was quite cynical about this announcement and its timing — and to some degree, I still am. But, having just spent several hours reading through Instagram’s own description of the new features (and clicking on all the links!), I’m pleased to say that there actually are some changes that I believe will be meaningful.

TL;DR

Instagram is taking steps to automatically place new or pre-existing users who are under the age of 16 into a “Teen Account.” Here is their description of what makes Teen Accounts different from adult accounts, along with instructions for how parents can use the new parent supervision features.

More detail:

Here is how Instagram itself describes some of the most important changes:

Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app.

Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to. 

Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels. 

Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. We’ll also automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens’ comments and DM requests. 

Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.  (My note: even better, parents will have the option to fully block their teen’s access to Instagram after this time limit has been reached.)

Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs. (My note: parents also will have the option to fully block their teen’s access to Instagram during these hours.)

Introducing Parental Supervision

What’s more, users who are under 16 years old will not be able to change any of these settings without a parent’s approval. (Teens between 16 and 18 will not automatically be put into Teen Accounts, but Meta will offer parents the option to set one up for them and enable parental supervision features.) As the announcement explains:

Teens under 16 will need their parent’s permission to use less protective settings. To get permission, teens will need to set up parental supervision on Instagram. If parents want more oversight over their older teen’s (16+) experiences, they simply have to turn on parental supervision. Then, they can approve any changes to these settings, irrespective of their teen’s age.

Once supervision is established, parents can approve and deny their teens’ requests to change settings or allow teens to manage their settings themselves. Soon, parents will also be able to change these settings directly to be more protective.

According to the announcement, parents who want to will also be able to:

Get insights into who their teens are chatting with: While parents can’t read their teen’s messages, now they will be able to see who their teen has messaged in the past seven days.

Set total daily time limits for teens’ Instagram usage: [As I noted above] Parents can decide how much time their teen can spend on Instagram each day. Once a teen hits that limit, they’ll no longer be able to access the app. 

Block teens from using Instagram for specific time periods: [As I noted above] Parents can choose to block their teens from using Instagram at night, or specific time periods, with one easy button.

See topics your teen is looking at: Parents can view the age-appropriate topics their teen has chosen to see content from, based on their interests.

Some people may not like the idea of being able to see their children’s contacts and the types of content they’ve chosen to look at—but these features are optional. Overall, I think these changes are all steps in the right direction.

FAQ

Here are answers to the four main questions you probably have:

• Q: When are Teen Accounts going to be rolled out?

  A: According to Meta’s announcement from September 17, 2024:

  Today, we’ll start placing teens who sign up for Instagram into Teen Accounts, and we’ll notify teens already using Instagram about these changes so we can begin moving them into Teen Accounts next week. 
  

  We plan to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and to start placing them in Teen Accounts in the European Union later this year. Teens around the world will start to get Teen Accounts in January. We’ll also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year.

• Q: Does these settings just apply to new teen accounts, or is Meta going to retroactively apply them to all teen accounts?

  A: As indicated in that quote above, Meta claims it is going to retroactively apply these settings to all accounts that it knows belong to teenagers under 16.

  
  More specifically, Meta is going to automatically apply these settings to all accounts that it knows belong to kids between 13 and 15 years old — because technically, kids under 13 years old are legally not supposed to be allowed on Instagram to begin with.

• Q: Kids lie about their age all the time. How is Meta going to verify teenagers’ ages?
  

  This, of course, is the million dollar question. Meta’s short answer, quoted from here, is:

  Teens may lie about their age to circumvent these new protections. That’s why we’re requiring teens to verify their age in new ways. For example, if they attempt to create a new account with an adult birthday, we will require them to verify their age in order to use the account. We’re also building new technology to find teens that have lied about their age to automatically place them in protected settings

  I went a little deeper into this question, because to me it’s the most important one, and I found a bit more information:

  • If an account owner tries to change their birthdate on the app to indicate that they’re an adult (or tries to open a new account as an adult — which I assume many kids will do, in an attempt to pretend to be their own parent!), Meta/Instagram will ask them to manually verify their age, either by uploading an ID or by posting a video selfie. (Here is an article/video explaining how the video/selfie option works.) Note that the video selfie option appears to have been developed to determine whether someone is over or under 18 years old; it’s not clear to me how well this technology can determine whether, say, someone is 15 (and thus should automatically be given a teen account) or 16 (in which case, the teen account feature is optional).

  • According to this article, Meta is also using AI-powered algorithms to identify accounts that it suspects are being used by kids under age 16. If the algorithm suspects that the user is under age, my understanding is that it’ll ask them to verify their age by uploading an ID or video selfie, per the article I linked to above. Here’s a brief description from Meta of how it works:

    To develop our adult classifier, we first train an AI model on signals such as profile information, like when a person’s account was created and interactions with other profiles and content. For example, people in the same age group tend to interact similarly with certain types of content. From those signals, the model learns to make calculations about whether someone is an adult or a teen.

• Q: What about kids who are younger than 13?
  

  A: Kids under 13 are legally not supposed to be allowed to have their own Instagram (or social media accounts) until they’re at least 13, thanks to the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act. That’s why Instagram’s policies state that the platform will delete accounts if it can’t verify that their owners are over 13 years old. But historically, the company hasn’t done much to try to proactively find those accounts.

  
  Hopefully this is changing — it certainly seems like it’ll have to, if Instagram is going to be proactively putting teens into Teen Accounts. But I haven’t been able to find any specific information about what Instagram is going to do if its “adult classifier” AI algorithm (i.e. the algorithm it’ll be using to find suspected 13-15-year-old users and put them into Teen Accounts) suspects that a user is under 13. (My hope is that it’ll delete them!) If anyone else finds any information on this, please leave a link in the comments and I’ll update this post.

  Leave a comment

Lastly, while I think all these changes are positive and long overdue, I do have two final points:

This does not suddenly make Instagram (or social media) a good use of time.

The promo video that Meta put together for its new teen accounts (you can see it at the top of this page) claims that these features will help teens “safely connect to the people and things that matter most.”

That’s a lovely sentiment, but hopefully, we can all agree that the way to “connect to people and things that matter most” is to spend time with those people (and on those things) in real life—not by passively scrolling through algorithmically chosen content on Instagram!

How come teenagers get all the good stuff?

Instagram’s new Teen Accounts have two features that I hope they’ll consider rolling out for adults, too:

• Time Management - as you may already know, right now, the only built-in time management feature that Instagram offers to adults is a “daily time limit reminder” — essentially something that tells you when you’re about to waste more time than you want to on Instagram, but that doesn’t actually block it. (Here’s how to set it up.)

  As a result, people like me have to give annoyingly complex workaround suggestions, such as buying a separate device like the Brick (you can use SCREENLIFEBALANCE10 for 10% off) or Unpluq tags (15% off if you use that link) to block yourself, or installing 3rd party apps such as ScreenZen or Opal.

  
  It would be so much better (for our sanity, if not for Instagram’s profits) if adults were given a native option to set enforceable time limits for themselves — and actually block their own access to the app.

• Content curation: Per Instagram’s description of these new accounts, “Teens will also get access to a new feature, made just for them, that lets them select topics they want to see more of in Explore and their recommendations so they can focus on the fun, positive content they love.” Adults’ feeds, on the other hand, will continue to be filled with whatever sh*t the algorithm decides to show them.

(Very) Long Story Short:

These are all very positive advances, but they’re long overdue—and there is more to be done.

Let’s work together to put more pressure on social media companies by getting KOSPA passed.

To scrolling less and living more,

Catherine Price

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Learn More:

• This page has answers to more FAQ about Teen Accounts

• How to set up parental supervision on Instagram Teen Accounts

• Meta’s full report on “How Research and Consultation Informed Instagram Teen Accounts”

• How Meta is using Artificial Intelligence to evaluate users’ ages

• Meta’s view on how age verification should work

• Here’s a summary of Teen Accounts from NPR.

ACTION NEEDED: Help Get The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act Passed

TL;DR: The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA, often also referred to as KOSA) is a bipartisan attempt to better protect our children online.

KOSPA was approved by the Senate in July, in an astonishing 91-3 vote and is now (as I type!) under consideration in the House Representatives — and in order for it to continue to move forward, our representatives need to know that it has our support.

So that’s my ask for you today: please click this button, follow the prompts, and tell your representatives that you support the bill! (This tool was built by the team at FairPlayForKids.org and it’s great: it will walk you through the whole process in just a few minutes.) Do it for yourself; do it for your kids (do it with your kids); do it for other people’s kids . . . JUST DO IT!

Ask Your Representative to Support KOSPA

Wait, what’s KOSPA?

Here’s more info; KOSPA is a proposed piece of legislation would both update and add to the only other major piece of legislation that addresses kids’ online privacy and safety— the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) — which was passed in, wait for it, 1998 . . . and hasn’t been updated since.

The version of KOSPA that has already been passed by the Senate would, among other things:

• Create a “duty of care” for websites that would require companies to better protect children from harmful content and give parents more control over what their children see online

• Prohibit targeted advertising to children and teens under age 17 and require their consent for data collection

• Allow children and teens to easily delete their personal information

• Create “minimization rules” that would limit how much information can be collected from children and teens to begin with

  

It would be a huge deal if it were passed, and would force major changes in how many websites and platforms (particularly social media) work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, tech companies are lobbying against it — and, right now, as I type, they are also trying to get changes made to the text that would gut some of the most important parts of the would-be law.

We cannot let this happen.

I know from previous advocacy work that when enough constituents speak up about an issue—ideally at once—it truly does influence lawmakers’ decisions. So . . . we need to speak up! More specifically, we need to ask our Congressional representatives to support and pass the Senate’s version of KOSPA. (It’s the stronger version of the bill.)

Ask Your Representative to Support KOSPA

As I alluded to above, if you click on the button above, you’ll be directed to an amazing tool created by the team at FairPlayForKids.org. It asks you to enter your name, address, and phone number so that it can look up your representative and place a call on your behalf — in fact, just a few seconds after I hit “submit,” my phone rang and I was automatically connected to the office of my representative. A real person answered the call, and (using tips from the script they provided) I voiced my support for the bill.

Then, as soon as I had hung up, Fairplay’s website offered me the option to send a pre-written (but customizable) email to my representative’s office in support of KOSPA. And after I did that, I was given some text to use on my social media accounts. It was amazingly efficient—the whole process took less than 3 minutes—and, as someone who does not usually place calls to government officials, it felt very empowering to voice my support directly to my representative. (Democracy in action!)

Long story short: please, if you are concerned about anything regarding kids, smartphones or social media, click on that link and voice your support of the Senate version of the bill. Then leave a comment here saying that you’ve done so — so that we can feel each other’s support here, too.

Leave a comment

Okay! I’m in the midst of an allergy attack (and, as mentioned, need to deal with dinner) but the LAST thing I’ll say today is that my colleagues Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch have an excellent op-ed in the New York Times this week, written in partnership wtih the Harris Poll, about the percentage of people in Gen Z who say that they wish that social media platforms—most dramatically TikTok and Twitter/X—had never been invented.

And despite this, the same respondents reported spending a truly astonishing amount of time on the platforms—more than seven hours a day, in many cases. Here’s a graphic from the piece:

And a quote:

Our survey shows that many Gen Z-ers see substantial dangers and costs from social media. A majority of them want better and safer platforms, and many don’t think these platforms are suitable for children. Forty-five percent of Gen Z-ers report that they “would not or will not allow my child to have a smartphone before reaching high school age (i.e. about 14 years old)” and 57 percent support the idea that parents should restrict their child’s access to smartphones before that age. Although only 36 percent support social media bans for those under the age of 16, 69 percent support a law requiring social media companies to develop a child-safe option for users under 18.

It’s truly amazing—and disturbing—to realize that some of the very same people who hold these opinions nonetheless are spending, in some cases nearly half their waking lives using them. I mean, seriously: what has happened to our culture and society for this to be the case? How have we been manipulated into thinking this is normal or okay? One way to begin to rectify this contradiction is to protect young users by getting KOSPA passed.

There’s much more to the op-ed than I can get into here — but for the sake of getting this newsletter out as quickly as possible (so that you can contact your representatives), I’ll simply urge you to check it out.

More on Instagram teen accounts later this week. (And remember, if you’re not interested in the Kids and Phones section of this newsletter, you can always adjust your subscription settings so that you don’t get posts about kids and phones, but do stay subscribed to the general How to Feel Alive list.)

To scrolling less, living more, and protecting our kids,

Catherine

It’s back-to-school season here in the States, which means a whole new crop of kids—roughly in the ranges of 8 to 14 years old—are going to start walking to school and going to practices and rehearsals on their own. This also means that a whole new crop of parents—flooded with the anxiety that comes whenever their former babies are out of their sight—are going to start wondering whether they should get their kids phones. You know, to coordinate logistics and keep them safe and communicate in emergencies and (insert list of potential anxiety- and logistical-driven reasons one might buy a child a phone).

And kids, for their part, are probably going to be pushing for that phone to be a smartphone.

And parents might be considering saying yes, in part because they don’t realize that there are other options available.

My friends: there are other options! Devices exist that can help you provide your children with more independence, make logistics easier, and temper your anxiety.

What’s more, these devices are cheaper than iPhones and less addicting and less distracting and don’t give your child access to social media or the nefarious corners of the internet.

I’m talking about smartphone alternatives.

As I’ve written about before, there are a growing number of devices on the market that are not full-fledged smartphones, but that provide varying levels of features and protections — you can think of them as being like “training wheels for the internet.”

There’s a whole range of options, from phones and watches with extremely limited functionality to phones that actually look like smartphones (helpful for older kids), but whose operating systems don’t provide access to the internet or social media. Some also offer additional useful guardrails — for example, the ability to monitor your child’s contacts, text messages and phone calls, and/or restrict (or enable) their ability to send photos along with their messages.

Note that all of these options require a bit more work to set up than say, an iPhone, which is deliberately designed to be as friction-less as possible—but in my opinion, their extra features and protections make it worth it.

Read My Choose-Your Own Adventure Guide to Smartphone Alternatives

Last winter, I spent an obscene amount of time putting together a detailed guide to these smartphone alternatives—which I’ve just updated with information on the Garmin Bounce and the Apple Watch. I thought it would be useful to share it with you at the beginning of the school year.

You can read my free, condensed version of the report here. (The round-up took a ton of work, which is why the full thing is behind a paywall — but I also wanted to be sure to provide some resources for free subscribers.)

For the full report, please become a paid subscriber and then visit that same link. (Substack will “unlock” the content for you.) As a paid subscriber bonus, I’m also including my Apple Watch thoughts below, since a bunch of people have asked me about the Apple Watch recently. :)

To scrolling less, living more, and delaying smartphones for as long as possible,

Catherine Price

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PS: I’ll be sharing more practical tips about how to create better back-to-school screen time boundaries and routines via Instagram, so if you haven’t already, please consider following me there. (But then immediately log out afterwards! I’m trying my best to use social media for good and do not want you to get sucked in!)

Read more

First things first, a warm welcome to new subscribers (including those from the Substack who read my post there about kids and smartphones). I’m thrilled you’re joining us.

There’s been a lot happening since last I wrote. On the personal side, my husband has been away on an extended work trip since May 13 (!!!), which has made it tough to stick to my aspirational newsletter schedule, let alone do things like exercise, clean the house, or remember to eat lunch. (A huge shout-out to any solo parents out there—you are doing hard work.) If you’ve wondered why you haven’t heard from me in a while, that’s why.

But more relevantly, the past month has seen some truly wonderful developments in terms of kids, smartphones, and social media that I am eager to share with you—and which I hope you’ll share with others who might be interested. Most importantly:

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Calls for a Warning Label on Social Media

Yesterday, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for there to be a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, akin to the ones found on cigarette boxes, stating that “social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

As he writes, “A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.”

Dr. Murthy has been sounding the alarm on the health risks of social media use for a while now, most notably in a health advisory he issued last May, but his call for a warning label is by far his most assertive move yet. Here’s my favorite paragraph:

Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food? These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.

In addition to calling for Congress to mandate a warning label, Dr. Murthy also advocates for changes including:

• Legislation from Congress “shield[ing] young people from online harassment, abuse and exploitation and from exposure to extreme violence and sexual content that too often appears in algorithm-driven feeds.” The measures should “prevent platforms from collecting sensitive data from children and should restrict the use of features like push notifications, autoplay and infinite scroll, which prey on developing brains and contribute to excessive use.” (He also wants to see continued support for the federal Kids Online Health & Safety Task Force.)

• Requiring companies to “share all of their data on health effects with independent scientists and the public — currently they do not — and allow independent safety audits.” As he writes, “While the platforms claim they are making their products safer, Americans need more than words. We need proof.”

• Encouraging school administrators to make the school day a phone-free experience (including during lunch and recess) to help students focus and have time to socialize together in person without the distraction caused by phones.

• Encouraging pediatricians and other doctors, nurses, and public health leaders to “raise the issue of social media with kids and parents and guide them toward safer practices.” (I’m working on a resource kit specifically geared toward pediatricians. If you’re a pediatrician and have thoughts or requests for resources that would be helpful for you and your practice, please leave a comment—and/or share this post with your own kids’ pediatrician and ask them to do the same. )

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• Encouraging parents to “create phone-free zones around bedtime, meals and social gatherings to safeguard their kids’ sleep and real-life connections — both of which have direct effects on mental health. And they should wait until after middle school to allow their kids access to social media.”

  • Given that this is easier said than done, he also encourages parents to “work together with other families to establish shared rules, so no parents have to struggle alone or feel guilty when their teens say they are the only one who has to endure limits.”

• Supporting young people who are trying to create change. (He specifically recommends checking out the Log Off movement and Wired Human.)

This is a big deal.

While the Surgeon General can’t mandate a warning label on his own — as he points out, that requires Congressional approval — such a strongly worded statement from “the Nation’s Doctor” is likely to have ripple effects even if the warning label does not come to be.

More specifically, I believe it will make it easier for government officials, school administrators, parents, pediatricians, and even teenagers themselves to take a stand against social media. And if Congress does end up approving a warning label, the effects could be even greater. An accompanying piece in the NYT points out that before cigarette boxes had a warning label, roughly 42 percent of American adults smoked. These days, it’s closer to 11.5 percent.1

Four Things You Can Do Right Now

As Dr. Murthy writes, “One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school was that in an emergency, you don’t have the luxury to wait for perfect information. You assess the available facts, you use your best judgment, and you act quickly.” As he concludes, “The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor.” We need to take action—and we need to do it now.

(Not convinced? Check out this post from Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch making the case for why we should not wait.)

To that end, here are four things that you personally can do today:

1. Share (and talk about) the Surgeon General’s statement with your friends, fellow parents, school administrators, and your kids’ pediatrician.2

Encourage them to do the same. The more people who are aware that America’s top doctor believes that social media is harmful for youth mental health, the better. (Here’s an article about it from the AP that I believe does not have a paywall; you can also share this post.)

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2. Invite other parents and caregivers to join you in pledging to delay the age at which you give your kids access to smartphones and social media.

(They’re legally not even supposed to be on the platforms till they’re at least 13, and that age is purely the result of lobbying, so this should be an easy lift.) Just create a shared Google doc or spreadsheet that says, “We pledge not to give our children smartphones until at least high school or social media until they are at least 16”* and invite people to sign it. I created one of these for my daughter’s K-8 school in May, targeting preschoolers through sixth graders, and almost 10% of the students are already signed up!

3. Talk about the issue with your own kids — regardless of whether they already use social media.

• If they’re young enough (and/or don’t yet have social media), talk with them about the business models of these platforms (i.e. they make money by manipulating us into spending our time and attention on them) and some of the negative effects that occur when we compare ourselves to people we see online. If you start early enough, you may be able to inoculate them against even wanting to be on social media—if we can get our kids to think that social media is uncool, we will have succeeded! (Another parent recently told me that his daughter has started to call out her mom when she’s scrolling through Instagram; my own daughter shakes her head while telling me about her 3rd grade classmates who supposedly are already on “TicTac.”3) The film The Social Dilemma is an excellent conversation starter for slightly older kids.

• If they’ve got older siblings who are already on the platforms, you can also let them know that we adults have recently realized that social media is not good for kids, which is why they will not be allowed to use it till they’re older. (We do the same thing for alcohol, after all!)

• If your kid already has social media, you can always consider changing course and revoking their access. (After all, parents changed their attitudes toward cigarettes once the health risks were clear.) Regardless, it’s definitely worth having a conversation with them about how they feel when they use the platforms, and if there’s any part of them that wishes that they didn’t feel such pressure to be on social media. You might be surprised by the conversation that results. For example, here’s how the Surgeon General describes an encounter he had with some students last fall:

  As often happens in such gatherings, they raised the issue of social media.

  After they talked about what they liked about social media — a way to stay in touch with old friends, find communities of shared identity and express themselves creatively — a young woman named Tina raised her hand. “I just don’t feel good when I use social media,” she said softly, a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

  Her confession opened the door for her classmates. One by one, they spoke about their experiences with social media: the endless comparison with other people that shredded their self-esteem, the feeling of being addicted and unable to set limits and the difficulty having real conversations on platforms that too often fostered outrage and bullying. There was a sadness in their voices, as if they knew what was happening to them but felt powerless to change it.

4. Delete your own social media accounts from your phone for the week.

(Trust me: the companies will still hold on to all your data.) Telling kids that social media is bad for them while simultaneously remaining tethered to our own feeds is the equivalent of telling them not to smoke while puffing on a cigarette. Let’s put our money where our mouths are: if we believe that social media is bad for mental health, then let’s all experiment with not using social media. Try deleting your social media apps and keeping them off your phone for the rest of this week. Invite your kids to join you. Then on Sunday night, have a conversation about what it felt like, and how it changed your interactions. (Note that a true social media “detox” could take upwards of 3 weeks, since heavy users are likely to experience withdrawal symptoms — but even a brief experiment can be eye-opening.)

One More Optimistic Update:

I’ve started to officially collaborate with Jonathan Haidt and his team on their efforts to roll back the phone-based childhood, as he calls it, and offer children more opportunities for fun and unstructured play. You’ve probably seen or heard Jon the news: his book, The Anxious Generation, has been at the top of the bestseller lists for months, he’s been all over the media talking about kids, phones, and social media, and he (and his collaborator, ) are the creators of the Substack, which is a must read for anyone interested in these issues. (Seriously, you should click on that link and subscribe right now!)

I’ve now had a chance to get to know Jon and his team firsthand and learn more about how they’re thinking about and approaching this problem, and I cannot tell you how heartened and optimistic I am. They’re brilliant, they’re passionate, they’re practical, and they’ve got the attention of people who have the power to make changes happen. I’ve been worrying about kids, smartphones and social media ever since I started working on How to Break Up With Your Phone in 2016. But today, as I write this newsletter, I’ve never felt more hopeful.

With that said, we can’t just rely on the work of a few people; change is not going to happen unless all of us take action.

Dave Cicirelli, an artist who’s also collaborating with Haidt’s team, recently shared a video that illustrates how movements get started: we typically give the credit to the first person who’s brave enough to take a stand. But in reality, the most important people are the first followers: they signal to everyone else that it’s safe to join in.

So I encourage you to be a first follower. Take a stand. Say no to social media and smartphones for your kids.

It may feel scary at first, but I bet you that in just a few months, you’ll look around you and find that you’re dancing in a crowd.

To scrolling less and living more,

Catherine Price

PS: I mentioned in my last newsletter, I gave a presentation about kids, smartphones, and social media at my daughter’s school in May and created an edited recording of it that you are welcome to share with anyone you think might find it useful. Jon Haidt called it "one of the best talks [he’s] seen on the problem of phone-based childhood," and said that "This is the video you should share with the parents of your kids’ friends." (Italics his.) Here it is again, if you’d like to check it out and/or share it.

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PPS: Last year, I had the honor of meeting the Surgeon General personally when he invited me to be a guest on his House Calls Podcast to talk about screen/life balance and How to Break Up With Your Phone. I subsequently read his book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, and I’ve been a super fan ever since!

As longtime readers of this Substack know, I’m the founder of a platform called Screen/Life Balance and the author of a book called How to Break Up With Your Phone. I have spent nearly a decade researching and writing about our relationships with technology — and how we can improve them.

In the years since How to Break Up With Your Phone was published, I’ve had the opportunity to share my work with outlets and audiences including The New York Times, NPR, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Guardian, The Independent, Jon Favreau, Sanjay Gupta, Oprah Winfrey, and the Surgeon General of the United States, among others. I’ve spoken to audiences from all sorts of industries, from tech to finance to education to government — and as many of my new readers know, I was the coach for The Guardian’s “Reclaim Your Brain” email series, which was designed to help people redesign their relationships with their phones (and which, with more than 140k sign-ups in its first two months, has become their fastest-growing email newsletter ever).

Most importantly, I’ve also had the privilege of hearing directly from thousands of readers about the negative effects that technology has had on them, and how “breaking up” with their phones—and creating new, healthier relationships with their devices—has positively affected their lives.

How to Break Up With Your Phone was technically meant for adults (or, at least, teenagers on up). But as I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve recently turned my attention to kids and technology—in large part because my own daughter is finishing up 3rd grade and is about to go into a combined class of 4th and 5th graders.

In hopes of igniting a cultural shift, I gave a presentation at my daughter’s school last week about why I think we need to join together as parents to rethink our approach to technology, and delay the age at which we give our children access to smartphones and social media.

This post is my attempt to share what I’ve learned.

It contains video and audio recordings of the event, a downloadable version of the slide deck, a link to suggested guidelines, some suggested frameworks for how to make decisions, and some resources that I personally have found helpful.

Please feel free to share this post or any of the resources with anyone you think might find them helpful (and/or bookmark it for your own reference later). This is a collective action problem, and if we’re going to solve it, we need to work together.

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To scrolling less, living more, and being the change-makers that our children need,

Catherine Price, founder of Screen/Life Balance and author of How to Break Up With Your Phone

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Note: so far, this is all entirely a labor of love and has taken nearly a month of full-time, unpaid work. I truly do want you to share this as widely as possible, but if you’re able to become a paid subscriber, I would greatly appreciate your financial support.

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Video of the Talk

As you can see from the slide behind me in this still, I felt the need to provide an emotional roadmap to the audience. We started at a state of vague discomfort and feelings of powerlessness. Then I escorted everyone into a deep pit of existential despair, as I talked about some of the risks and threats our children face online. (Warning: this part is graphic and upsetting.)

But — I promise this is true! — we ended on a note of optimism and empowerment, with concrete suggestions and a proposed plan.

Watch on YouTube

Slide Deck

If you’d prefer, you can also get a sense of the presentation by reading through the slide deck and notes (this contains a few bonus slides that I didn’t have time for in the talk itself).

• It’s a large file (because I embedded the videos) — so you’ll need to download it!

• I put a ton of links into the notes in the slide deck, so if you don’t see something that I talked about linked to from this page, it’s likely in the slides

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Listen to the Talk:

If you’d prefer to listen to the talk podcast-style, you can do here. (It should also be available via the How to Feel Alive podcast feed, so that you can listen to it on your favorite podcast platform.)

Guidelines for Kids & Screens (Google Doc)

Here are some of my suggestions for how to handle kids and screens at home (whether we’re talking about smartphones or other devices, such as iPads, tablets, Kindles & eReaders, laptops, televisions, or any other devices you may have). These are designed to be useful regardless of whether or not your child has their own smartphone.

I will also paste these at the end of this post if you’d prefer to read them here.

View the Guidelines

FAQs, Resources, and Suggestions:

What age is right for social media and smartphones?

This is an active area of debate, but I know of literally no expert who would recommend giving a child a smartphone or social media account before high school, if not later—and I personally believe that we should delay both for as long as possible. (After all, as the US Surgeon General has pointed out, social media in particular has not been proven to be safe and, as he puts it, “there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health.”)

At the very least, I recommend following the guidelines from , author of The Anxious Generation and the Substack, and delay social media until at least 16, and smartphones until at least high school.

Note that if/when you do give your child a smartphone, you will likely want to subscribe to a 3rd party internet safety or parental control plan to block social media and prevent unfettered access to the internet, including porn — I’ve included some links below.

But for those of you who are interested in going further, here’s a radical idea: what if we didn’t buy our kids smartphones at all, but instead waited till they were able to pay for them (and their data plans) themselves? I know that may sound dramatic — but who says that we owe our kids thousand-dollar phones at any age? And also, imagine what other life lessons (and skills, and work experience, and opportunities to choose their own priorities) your child might gain if they had to earn their own device.

I’ll also point out that this approach might automatically raise the age to 18 because, as Melanie Hempe, the founder of ScreenStrong and author of the Be ScreenStrong Substack, points out, 18 is the minimum age at which you can legally sign a contract with a cell service provider.

Note that I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get your child a phone at all — I’m just talking about “smart”phones. There are plenty of smartphone alternatives that are much cheaper than iPhones and Androids, and provide many of the benefits of smartphones without many of the risks—keep reading to learn more.

Quick Decision-Making Tool:

Regardless of what you think of that idea, if you’re trying to decide whether to give your child a smartphone, my personal suggestion is to ask yourself:

Are you ready for your child to have access to the entire internet?

Are you ready for the entire internet to have access to your child?

If your answer to either question is “no,” then consider a smartphone alternative. (See below.)

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The Challenges of Collective Action Problems

No one wants their kid to feel left out — that’s one of the main reasons (if not THE main reason) that so many parents give their kids smartphones or social media accounts at such young ages. This is because, as , author of The Anxious Generation, points out, it’s a collective action problem:

1. Individuals’ decisions affect the collective. If I want to get drunk, that’s my business and probably won’t affect other people. If I want to get drunk and drive a car, on the other hand, my individual decision will affect other people. That’s what’s happening with smartphones, social media and kids: if your child(ren) have smartphones or social media, then it does affect other people’s children. And if other people’s children have smartphones and social media, then it’s going to affect your kids.

2. It’s hard to be a first mover. Until enough people take action and agree to delay the age at which their kids get smartphones and social media, there may indeed be a social cost for you or your child (in the form of feeling left out). But the good news is that we’re nearing a tipping point (the black line in the graph below), where enough people have decided to be change-makers that the benefits of taking action outweigh the potential costs.

So I encourage you: do it! Be a change-maker! Not only will it help your individual child(ren), but it will make it easier for others to jump on board.

Sample Community Pledge

The solution to a collective action problem is to . . . take action collectively. One way to do so is to start a pledge at your child’s school (or amongst your friends) in which parents agree to delay the age at which they give their children smartphones or social media.

I’ve started one at my child’s school (which is K-8 — for British readers, 8th grade ends when kids are roughly 14) that simply says, “I/we pledge that we will not give our child(ren) smartphones or social media while they are enrolled at this school.” (I think they should be delayed further, but given that the school ends after 8th grade, this seemed like a good starting place/low-hanging fruit.)

You can easily create something similar (with your own proposed ages/grades) simply by creating a Google sheet or doc with a tab or section for each grade at the school. So far, at least a half dozen other families have signed on in my daughter’s grade alone — and it’s amazing what a sense of solidarity seeing their names gives me. Which brings me to the reasons it’s important to make this a public pledge. Doing so will:

• Make you feel less alone

• Signal to other parents that they have support

• Signal to the school that parents want support

• Encourage other parents who might be on the fence

• Help us stick to our own intentions (i.e. you can say to your kid, “I know you want a smartphone, but I signed a pledge with other families and I can’t let the other parents down”)

• Help us defend ourselves to our children (i.e. use it as proof that no, not everyone has a phone!)

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An Argument for Common Sense

I’ve been very surprised to see some of the pushback against Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. A number of people seem to believe that he overstates the evidence about whether there is a causal relationship between the advent of smartphones and social media, and the decline in youth mental health. (With that said, it’s also a #1 bestseller — so apparently a lot of parents believe that these things have negative effects — and want help!)

Personally, I believe that by this point, we have more than enough evidence to take action (read this post from After Babel for more details — and also, Jon and Jean Twenge—author of —have posted an open source Google doc with a collection of the studies, sorted and evaluated by type, so that people can make judgments for themselves).

But I also think this obsession with the nuances of specific studies—many of which are deeply flawed—misses the forest for the trees. Now, mind you, I’m a health and science journalist by background, I host a medical podcast for NewYork Presbyterian Hospital. I have Type 1 diabetes, and prior to writing How to Break Up With Your Phone, I spent more than three years writing a book (Vitamania) about the history of vitamins and supplements, in which I came down hard on the supplement industry — and concluded that it is totally nuts for us to take dietary supplements unless there is evidence, ideally from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), that they are effective and safe (which in most cases, spoiler alert, there is not). In other words, I care a lot about scientific evidence and randomized, controlled trials!

But this is a different situation. As I point out in my talk, I think that instead of debating the details of specific studies (or waiting for THE definitive RCT to be done — which, as a side note, it never will be, because at this point, the fact that we even suspect that these things might be harmful would mean that randomizing people to a smartphone/social media group would be unethical), we should make our decisions based on our values and what we know for sure. This includes the following:

• We’re in the midst of a youth mental health crisis (and it’s international)

• Technology has changed dramatically since 2007 when the first iPhone was introduced

• Smartphones and apps are truly different from any technology that has come before. For example, they fit in our pockets, their feeds are personalized, and, as Tristan Harris (founder of the Center for Humane Technology and a former Google engineer) has pointed out, the companies behind our most popular and time-sucking apps have literally thousands of engineers working full-time on figuring out how to get us to spend as much time on their products as possible — which was not true for our televisions or landline telephones.

• Many adults don’t feel great about their own relationships with their smartphones and apps. (Think about your own relationship: are you killing it? Me, neither — and I literally wrote the book!) I have heard from thousands of people who are convinced that their relationships with their smartphones are having horrible effects on their attention spans, memories, sleep and human relationships—and yet feel unable to change their habits. In fact, 57% of Americans consider themselves “addicted” (their word) to their phones.

• The opportunity costs are enormous. Time is zero sum, which means that when we spend our time on one thing, we by definition cannot spend it on something else. 62 percent of people ages 18-29 report being online “almost constantly,” and American teens report spending about 4.8 hours per day on social media alone. Even at just four hours per day, that adds up to 60 full days per year — a quarter of our waking lives.

• The time we spend on our devices is changing our brains. But don’t take my word for it. Watch this short clip from Chamath Palihapitiya, former Vice President of User Growth at Facebook (his job was to get more users onto the platform), who puts it bluntly: we are being programmed. (Warning: he drops the f-bomb in this video.)

• Technology changes all of our brains, but children’s brains are particularly vulnerable. This is true for anything we do repeatedly, for long periods of time. And the brains of early adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the effects of technology, because they’re in a period of such rapid change. As the American Psychiatric Association points out, ““Children and adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to technological addiction because their brains are still developing.”

• We know what’s good for our kids’ mental and physical health — and smartphones and apps do not encourage it! Think, for example, of some of the things we know are important for our mental and physical health, such as time outside, physical activity, healthy relationships, adequate sleep, trusted role models, low stress levels, and kindness. How many of these things do you think are helped or encouraged by the things we do on our phones?

• We know that smartphones are what Jonathan Haidt calls “experience blockers”: when we look down at our phones, we miss out on everything else going on around us. This means fewer experiences, fewer memories, fewer conversations, fewer skills, and fewer human interactions—for kids in particular, this means less practice navigating social dynamics and, if I’m being poignant about it (which I always am), less of a chance to experience childhood. (Did you know that childhood is fleeting? It’s fleeting.)

• We know what the companies say about their own products. Why are we so fixated on academic studies when we have evidence from the companies themselves demonstrating that they know their products have negative effects? Once I started paying attention to what they were saying, it became very difficult for me to imagine ever giving my daughter access to their products.
  

  See, for example, this series of investigative articles from the Wall Street Journal based on a trove of internal documents known as The Facebook Files, provided by whistleblower Frances Haugen, or this report on TikTok from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, or this account from Arturo Bejar, former Facebook employee, about the sexual harassment of teens on Instagram, or this longer video clip of Chamath Palihapitiya and Sean Parker (the former VP of user growth at Facebook and its former president, respectively), talking about the effects of the platforms that they helped to create.

  
  As a teaser, here’s a short clip from Sean Parker’s part:

  You can see the full clip here.

• We know that many tech execs don’t let their own children use the platforms and products that they create (that’s a link to an old article about Steve Jobs, but there are many more examples)

• We know our own values — for example, I’m going to bet that you want your children to believe in and express (and experience) kindness, empathy, tolerance, honesty, compassion, and self-confidence, among other values. And I’m going to bet that if you stopped to think about it, you’d agree that these are not the values that most of our interactions on our phones and social media support.

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Put this together, and I suggest that we reframe our questions.

Instead of obsessing over whether a causal negative relationship has been proven between smartphones, social media, and youth mental health, we should instead be asking:

1. What, if any, evidence is there that smartphones and social media have positive effects on youth mental health — especially when compared to other uses of their time (such as engaging in real-life hobbies and interests, or hanging out with friends in person)?
   

   And
   

2. What’s the potential harm if we do decide to delay our children’s access to smartphones and social media — especially compared to the potential harm if we don’t?

In other words:

Instead of asking what our children will miss out on if we don’t get them smartphones and social media, we should be asking what they will miss out on if we do.

My personal conclusion is that there is no solid evidence that these platforms and products are safe, or that they have an overall positive effect on youth mental health compared to other uses of children’s time. The potential harm that can come from using them far outweighs the risk of not using them.

Therefore, just as I would never give my child a pharmaceutical drug that had not been tested for safety or efficacy — let alone one that was associated with so many potential negative side effects—I do not intend to give my daughter access to a smartphone or social media.

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Resources and Solutions

Now that I, at least, am all worked up, here are some concrete resources to help you and your family.

What to do if your kid already has a phone

First of all, if you’re starting to feel like maybe this wasn’t the greatest parenting decision you’ve ever made, please do not beat yourself up. Of course you would never consciously make a decision that would negatively affect your kids! Parenting is hard under the best of circumstances, and when it comes to technology, we are in the middle of a giant, society-wide course correction. This is going to be awkward and uncomfortable, and it’s essential that you not beat yourself up.

Second, if you agree with the argument I’m making in this post, it’s okay to admit to your child(ren) that we adults have made a mistake. We didn’t realize the potential risks and harms of these platforms and products — and it’s our job to keep our children safe. That means that it’s okay to take your child’s smartphone back. (Did they pay for it?) I know that’s a radical suggestion, but it is a possibility — and I’ve heard from numerous parents who have told me that while it caused a lot of conflict at first, the results were ultimately positive (and their children were begrudgingly grateful). This will, of course, be a lot easier if you enlist other parents to do it with you.

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If this seems too radical, at the very least invest in one of the family protection plans I mention below, and follow the guidelines I lay out in the google doc.

And no matter what you decide, TALK TO YOUR KIDS about these issues! Educate them, in whatever way is age-appropriate, about some of the risks, threats, and opportunity costs of spending time on social media and smartphones. My personal dream is that we’ll eventually reach a state where kids themselves don’t want smartphones or social media because they’ll recognize that the business models of these companies essentially boil down to stealing our lives from us, right under our noses.

Online Safety / Parental Control Plans:

These are plans, offered by independent companies and cell/internet service providers, that have much more robust safety features and parental controls than the native options on iPhones/Androids.

I recommend looking into these if your kids have any type of interaction with the internet, regardless of whether your child has a full-on smartphone. Among other things, they allow you to block particular sites (and categories of sites) across devices, and to set access schedules (so that, for example, you can protect your children’s homework time and prevent them from scrolling at night).

• Canopy

• Bark

• Verizon Smart Family

• T-Mobile Family Mode

• ATT Secure Family App

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When Your Children Are Young, Get a “Family Loaner Phone”

When your kid is young and is mostly communicating with YOU (and has started doing things like going to playdates or sports practices on their own) you could get a basic family loaner phone that doesn’t belong to anyone in particular. You simply loan it out as needed (e.g. when your kid has sports practice and is going to need to be picked up), and then your kid returns it when they’re done. This could be a flip phone, or an old iPhone that’s been “bricked” (see the gadget that I link to later in this post).

Smartphone Alternatives:

When you decide your child is ready for a phone of their own, don’t jump directly to a full-on smartphone. Instead, consider one of these devices, which range from simple watches that basically only allow phone calls and short text messages, to Android phones with special operating systems that allow varying degrees of freedom and independence (none of them allow kids to download social media apps). You can think of these alternatives as being like “training wheels” for the internet.

For a detailed overview, please see my Choose Your Own Adventure Guide to Smartphone Alternatives, in which I describe each of these smartphone alternatives in detail.

If you just want the names, here’s a list of the ones I know of. (I’ve reached out directly to some of these companies to get discount codes and affiliate links when possible, as you’ll see, but please note that I’m personally agnostic about these options — they’re all better than smartphones!)

• Alcatel Flip Phone

• Bark Phone

• Gabb Wireless Watch (use code CATHERINEPRICE for a free month of service)

• Gabb Wireless Phone (use code CATHERINEPRICE for a free month of service)

• Gizmo Watch (Verizon)

• Pinwheel Phone (use code SCREENLIFEBALANCE for 10% off a Pinwheel Pack)

• Tello (service provider for Alcatel — they have a “pay as you go” plan that’s great for family “loaner” phones)

• Troomi Phone (use code CATHERINEPRICE for $50 off)

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Useful Gadget to Lock Down Your Child’s (Or Your Own) Phone

The Brick
(use code SCREENLIFEBALANCE10 for 10% off)

This is a cool gadget that allows you to block all apps on your phone except for the ones you choose to allow — which is great if, say, you want your kid to only be able to use a phone to listen to podcasts or audio books, or if you want to take a break from your own phone for a while!

Parental Control Guides:

If your child is going to have any internet access, then you need to take the time to adjust parental controls. It’s confusing and a total pain, but you simply must. End stop.

Watch the “risks and threats” part of my presentation if you want to know some of the reasons why this is essential — or you can start by watching this PSA from the FBI about sextortion and video games:

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These are a few guides to parental controls that I found — if you know of more, please tell me about them in the comments. It takes a village!

• Comcast Parental Control Guide for XFinity

• Common Sense Media Guide to Parental Controls (a bit out-of-date but still useful)

• Common Sense Media’s Parent Resource Page

• Common Sense Media “Ultimate Guide to Fortnite”

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Books, Articles & Sites:

Here are some additional resources I’ve found useful.

• Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (website with information on his book, plus a ton of useful resources)

  • Jonathan Haidt’s “After Babel” Substack Newsletter

  • After Babel post looking into the evidence on social media and mental health of teen girls (with links to open source collection of research studies)

  • Atlantic article summarizing The Anxious Generation

• ScreenStrong — an organization started by the mother of a former video game-addict that has very helpful, evidence-backed information about screentime and children’s brain development

• Video of the former president and former VP of user growth at Facebook talking about the effects of the platforms that they helped to create

• WSJ video expose on how TikTok’s algorithms lead users into rabbit holes

• US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s official advisory about social media and youth mental health

• The American Academy of Pediatrics teamed up with AT&T to produce this surprisingly helpful questionnaire that can help you determine whether your kid is ready for a phone. (I say “surprisingly” because it was funded in part by a phone company — but it really does ask good questions.)

• The American Academy of Pediatrics also has a tool that you can use to create a customized plan for your family.

• The American Academy of Pediatrics also has a really useful Social Media and Youth Mental Health Q&A Portal

Subscribe now

And, lastly, here is a pasted-in version of my

Recommended Screen and Device Guidelines for Families: 

(Also available as a shareable/printable Google doc)

Note: these can apply to any device, not just smartphones

• Keep screens in public places in your house (no bedrooms)

• The bigger the screen, the better

It seems highly unlikely that you would find your child watching pornography on your living room television set.

• Create a central charging station for devices (not in a bedroom)—consider doing this for everyone’s devices (grown-ups, too!)

• Give devices a “bedtime” that is at least one hour before the humans’ bedtimes (to help everyone’s bodies wind down for sleep, and to avoid the stimulating effects of blue light before bed)

• Create schedules for internet access – this is a great way to prevent kids from getting distracted during homework. You can do this by simply designating an area for devices that’s not near where homework is happening — or you can use a family control plan (see below) to actually set schedules for when certain websites and apps are (and are not) accessible. 

• Create “No-Phone Zones” (kind of like the Quiet Car on Amtrak). In addition to bedrooms, I recommend the dining room table.

• For eReaders, the more basic, the better

  • The paperwhite kids’ Kindle is a great option

• Communicate your family policies to other families
  

For example, let them know ahead of time that you don’t allow phones on playdates at your house, or screens in bedrooms. (The more often we have these conversations, the less awkward they will feel!)

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Hi all,

I’m freshly back from a week in Puerto Rico for my daughter’s spring break, where I did fun things like rediscover that, unlike Ken, I don’t know how to “beach,” and that unlike nearly everyone else I know, I am unable to read novels to relax.

So instead, I covered myself in sun-protective clothing and SPF 50 sunblock and immersed myself in my version of a light beach read: social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

I first came across Haidt’s work years ago, via his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, when I first started writing about what it takes to live a meaningful and joyful life. These days, he’s the main author (along with ) of the excellent Substack newsletterAfter Babel—which I highly recommend subscribing to if you have any interest in the issue of kids and technology. The Anxious Generation, which you likely have heard of, because it is (thankfully) everywhere right now, is about kids, smartphones, social media, and mental health—and what to do about all of the above.

I had the chance to meet Jon personally at an event last year, at which he gave a preview of some of arguments and suggestions from the book, and it got me all fired up in an “Oh my goodness, maybe there’s hope for our kids yet!” kind of way. Now that the book is out, I’m happy to say that it delivers. In it, Jon presents compelling evidence that the advent of smartphones and social media has had absolutely devastating effects on the mental health of young people, particularly girls — and makes the argument that today’s youth mental health crisis (which is not limited to the United States) is largely the result of what he calls the decline of “play-based” childhood, and its replacement with “phone-based childhood.”

His book contains the most thorough and convincing roundup and analysis of the research that I’ve seen. (He goes through much of this in his recent piece for the Atlantic; you can also learn about it by reading this post.)

But—and this is important!—Haidt doesn’t just talk about the problem. He presents a solution, in the form of simple, evidence-backed suggestions for schools, parents, teachers, and legislators that, if collectively adopted, could create a cultural shift that could end the era of the phone-based childhood and protect our children’s mental health.

I’m intending to mobilize other parents at my daughter’s school and enact some of Haidt’s suggestions, and I invite you to join me.

The General Plan:

Here are Haidt’s four suggestions for how we can protect and support our kids (quoted verbatim, with my notes in brackets):

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*Note: There are an increasing number of smartphone alternatives available—check out my round-up of smartphone alternatives for examples. Also, if your child already has a smartphone, you may want to consider paying for an add-on parental control plan from your service provider (I link to a few in the round-up) — they often provide the ability to set schedules and block particular apps, and are way more robust than what is natively available in the apps or on your phone.

Also, just to acknowledge the obvious: technology is an essential part of modern life, and teenagers are understandably going to want to be able to communicate with their peers—but there are ways to do this without social media. I’ll get into this in more detail in future newsletters.

Times have changed

There was a time, not so long ago, when Haidt’s proposed solutions might have seemed far-fetched. (I remember those days, because that’s what the world was like when How to Break Up With Your Phone came out in 2018!) But even in the past few months, attitudes have changed. The United States Surgeon General, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization have all issued advisories or guidance documents about phones and screens. The United Nations has called for schools around the world to ban phones from classrooms, and countries including the U.K., France, Italy, Finland and the Netherlands, have done just that. Even in countries without mandatory bans, administrators have enacted restrictions, and parents are joining together to sign pledges promising not to get their children smartphones or allow them onto social media until high school (or beyond). In the United States, lawmakers from both parties are working together (!!!!!) to try to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) to raise the age of consent for kids to sign up for social media accounts from 13 to at least 16 (more details here)—and actually require companies to enforce it. In other words, momentum is growing.

It takes collective action

One of the challenges that has always been present, when it comes to kids, phones, and social media, is that any change has to be collective in order for it to be successful. In other words, yes, you technically could forbid your child from having a smartphone or social media account, but if all of their other friends have phones and social media accounts, it’s going to be very, very hard. You might protect them from some of the negative effects of the platforms, but your kid will be correct when they say that they’re being left out—and the adolescent brain is particularly sensitive to social exclusion by peers.

However, if everyone (or even just a substantial portion of parents) agreed to follow Haidt’s suggestions, it would be a different story: if your kids’ friends aren’t on social media, then there’s less pressure for them to be. That’s the idea behind the Wait Till 8th movement in the United States and Smartphone-Free Childhood in the UK, both of which offer resources and support for parents who are up for the challenge of taking a stand against phone-based childhood. Haidt and his colleagues have also put together an excellent site, FreeTheAnxiousGeneration.com, that compiles research and resources; I also recommend ’s Substack, “Be ScreenStrong.”

Will you join me?

My own daughter is in 3rd grade; next year she’ll be in a combined class of 4th and 5th graders, which means that this issue is very much at the front of my mind (by that, I mean it literally keeps me up at night). As I mentioned above, I am planning to invite other parents at her school to join me and my husband in committing to not getting our children smartphones until they are in at least high school, or allowing them onto social media until they are at least 16. (I think that these age targets are better, based on adolescent brain-development, than only waiting till 8th grade, though the writer in me does appreciate the rhyme.)

Will this be easy? No. Will there be pushback? Possibly. Will it make me feel very self-conscious and awkward and nervous to put myself out there like this? Yes! (I know that I literally wrote a book about the need to redefine our relationships with technology, but that doesn’t mean that I relish the idea of being responsible for leading a movement.)

But here’s something I know: I need to do this. We need to do this. And so I’m pushing my own shyness and self-consciousness aside, and am going to take action—for my daughter, and for all the other kids in her generation. And I hope that you’ll join me.

If you’re in—or even if you’re just curious about the idea—please leave a comment below indicating your support, so that we can all see that we’re not alone (and if you have any experience initiating a similar movement in your own children’s school, definitely leave a comment, and share advice!). Over the coming months, I’ll keep you posted on my own progress, and share any insights that I’ve learned.

To scrolling less and living more—and helping our children to do the same,

Catherine

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PS: Next week, I’ll be getting back to the subject of Fun at Work, with my fellow fun-stigator, Devin McNulty. Many thanks to Fun Squad members who have shared their work challenges—I can’t wait to hear what Devin has to say!

(The image is a “phone” my daughter made for herself out of cardboard. As our pediatrician put it, “Well, that’s deliciously ironic.” Which is true — but check out the apps: there’s no social media on there.)

Note: usually only paid subscribers can contribute to discussion threads on this Substack—it’s a way of making this feels more like a community. I’m leaving this one open for now to spark discussion, but I’d love it if you’d consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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• Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s official advisory about social media and youth mental health

• The American Academy of Pediatrics teamed up with AT&T to produce this surprisingly helpful questionnaire that can help you determine whether your kid is ready for a phone. (I say “surprisingly” because it was funded in part by a phone company — but it really does ask good questions.)

• The American Academy of Pediatrics also has a great tool that you can use to create a customized plan for your family.

• The American Academy of Pediatrics also has a really useful Social Media and Youth Mental Health Q&A Portal

• List of smartphone alternatives , courtesy of waituntil8th.org. Speaking of which. . .

• Waituntil8th.org

• Comments by two early Facebook executives on the potential impacts of the very products they helped to create (and how they use — or more specifically do not use — their products themselves). Watch this with your kids!

• Fantastic Wall Street Journal expose on TikTok and its algorithms/tendencies to pull users into (potentially quite dangerous and destructive) rabbit holes. (Warning: some references to suicide and self-harm.) This is fascinating and I think should also be mandatory viewing for any parent considering letting their kid get on TikTok (and, for that matter, a really important video for teenagers to see for themselves, too.)

• Accompanying WSJ piece: How TikTok Serves Up Sex and Drug Videos to Minors (behind paywall)

• UNESCO report/guidance about smartphones in schools (and BBC article about countries that have banned them). (Full UNESCO report is here.)

• American Psychological Association’s Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence (I think that this is a bit wishy-washy — there’s an increasing body of evidence suggesting a causal, negative link between social media use and mental health)

• Journalist Jonathan Haidt’s Substack, After Babel: An excellent resource on the latest research about the effects of smartphones (in particular social media) on mental and physical health (particularly for teenagers). Here are two of my favorite posts — they’re great round-ups of the current evidence, with LOTS of links for anyone who wants to truly dork out on this.

  • Social Media is a Major Cause of the Mental Illness Epidemic in Teen Girls. Here’s the Evidence

  • Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health

  • The Case for Phone-Free Schools

• Article and mini documentary about an experiment at a boarding school called the Buxton School in which they completely banned smartphones and instead gave students and staff a Light Phone instead

• Diane Sawyer "Screen Time" special about screen time and its effects, particularly on children. I highly recommend checking it out (and that link leads to a YouTube playlist of segments from the special, so that you can watch it in chunks)

• From that feature, here's a segment they did on an updated version of the classic
  “still face experiment,” in which researchers asked parents to interact normally with their children for several minutes and then to check their phones for one to two minutes — and filmed the results. (Warning: it’s heartbreaking.)

• Washington Post piece about schools banning smartphones

• Op ed: It was a mistake to let kids onto social media. Here’s what to do now.