Wish Your Kids Lived in a World Without Social Media? You’re Not Alone

Published: July 3, 2025

pexels-ron-lach-9783809 — Photo from Ron Lach via Pexels

By Mallory Mattingly

Through his work, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt found that “a majority of parents wish social media apps didn’t exist.”

“My latest in @nytimes: Most parents wish their kids grew up in a world with no social media, expressing the same level of regret as for alcohol and guns,” Haidt wrote on Instagram.

“In the article (and in the book) I explain how in the early days of the iPhone and social media, we were all techno-optimists: we thought all technology was good, all the time, and that fully embracing it would make our kids smarter and more successful at every aspect of life,” the psychologist explained. “It didn’t turn out this way — and parents everywhere are seeing the effects of 9 hours a day on screens on their children.”

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In the article, he described parents’ feelings of “entrapment and regret” after giving their children access to smartphones and social media at a young age.

“…many wish that social media had never been invented, and overwhelmingly they support new social norms and policies that would protect kids from online harms,” he said.

Haidt explores the impact of social media in his book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Within its pages, he lays out “the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the ‘play-based childhood’ began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the ‘phone-based childhood’ in the early 2010s.”

Smartphones and social media impact all aspect of children’s and teens’ lives, from “sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism.”

But hope isn’t lost for the next generation. Through his work, Haidt aims to “reclaim childhood in the real world” by encouraging parents to adopt four new norms:

No smartphones before high school.
No social media before 16.
Phone-free schools.
More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.

“Each norm helps parents and teens escape the social trap they find themselves in,” Haidt’s Anxious Generation website explains. “No teen wants to be the only one who does not have a smartphone and social media, and no parent wants to socially isolate their child. These four norms help families escape the trap and reverse the two big (well-intentioned) mistakes we’ve made: overprotecting children in the real world and under-protecting them online.”

For parents who wish social media was never invented, Haidt’s norms could be the key to giving your kids their childhood back — without instant gratification and dopamine kicks from social media.

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