Don’t Give Your Kids Phones Before High School — Here’s Why
By Movieguide® Contributor
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, is advocating for phone-free childhoods — and for good reason.
“Millennials went through puberty with flip phones, and flip phones aren’t particularly bad. You use them just to communicate,” Haidt said on GOOD MORNING AMERICA on Tuesday. “It was when we gave kids smartphones and then right around that time, they also got…social media accounts.”
“When kids move their social lives onto social media like that, it’s not human. It doesn’t help them develop. And right away, mental health collapses,” he explained.
One way to help parents understand that kids don’t need phones is to ask themselves, “What are your best memories from childhood?”
Haidt said the average answer reminds them that it’s important for kids to be involved with others and to get outside.
“It’s being outside with other kids playing. You make up the rules. You are having fun. That’s nature’s way of having mammals wire up their brains, Kids need play and independence if they’re going to become healthy, happy, and independent adults,” said Haidt, who has been featured by Oprah, the TODAY SHOW and other notable shows and podcasts.
Movieguide® reported:
“Kids need to run around, have adventures,” Haidt told Katherine Schwarzenegger on her podcast. “They need to master their bodies, they need to be outside, they need sunlight, they need nature. They need a lot of things to grow up healthy.”
In 2012 and 2013, Haidt saw mental illness sharply increase in children. This included anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide and other issues, all caused by the use of smartphones.
“Haidt said for individual parents, trying to keep a child from using a smartphone or being on social media can feel like trying to ‘hold back the tide,’” GOOD MORNING AMERICA reported.
Haidt says parents also struggle with judgment or pressure, as they don’t want to be the only parents who don’t give their children phones.
He suggests these guidelines:
- No smartphones before high school. Haidt suggests giving kids flip phones before high school so they can still stay connected for safety purposes.
- No social media before age 16.
- Phone-free schools. Haidt recommends asking school officials for options like lockers for students’ phones.
- More free play and responsibility in the real world.
He believes the key to happier childhoods is play. Even for teenagers, all they need to do is put the phone away and play.
“If we’re going to keep all of our kids alone in our houses because we’re afraid to let them explore their neighborhood autonomously, then they’re going to get bored. But if we make much more effort to have them spend time with other kids without screens, guess what? They’ll figure out a game to play,” he told NPR in April.
“If you send them outside, they’ll figure out something to do. You know, in the ’60s and ’70s, there were crime waves, but parents still sent their kids outside to play. Today many parts of the country are much safer, and yet we’re so afraid to let children go outside. If we’re going to take away screens from children, then we have to give them freedom outside too,” he said.
