When he surveyed his class of college students, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt found that a majority of their days, from the first thing in the morning to the last moment before sleep, were spent checking texts, direct messages, and social media feeds on their phones—habits inculcated many years before. At the same time, statistics have shown a troubling rise of depression, anxiety, and suicide among adolescents since the early 2010s. To Haidt, who’s spent years studying moral and social development, these habits and these statistics are inextricably linked.
In his latest article for The Atlantic, he makes a definitive case for the end of phone-based childhood: outlining all the ways smartphone-based life interferes with a number of key developmental processes, impedes healthy habits, and weakens social bonds between adolescents. At its outset, the digital world seemed exciting and full of promise. Now, Haidt writes, we must face this question: “How much of life is exchanged for all this screen time?”
But it’s not too late to change course—and with proper coordination, he writes, it could be easier than we think. Haidt offers four reforms we can start implementing today in our schools and communities to catalyze a movement towards a happier, healthier existence.
To read this story, along with all of The Atlantic’s coverage of the human cost of technological progress, become a subscriber, starting at less than $2 a week.
