I am eternally grateful I brought up my kids in a pre-smartphone/social media time. I feel for the parents trying to negotiate this new world.
I think the writer lays out his points and evidence in a really clear, strong argument. Wondering what others think.
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We’re lucky that neither of our sons ever really used social media. They were never gamers either because of their sports schedules.
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My heart goes to parents with kids in middle and high school today. Not just because of the social media. I hope by the time my GD, who just turned one, will be of school age something will change for the better.
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it’s not the kids who will change or technology. Parenting has to evolve.
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Sometimes parents are powerless against social norms. I hope the damage done today will result in numerous class action lawsuits and will change social norms of tomorrow.
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I don’t subscribe to this point of view. Parents have all of the power, it’s how they choose to leverage it.
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I’m struggling to relate to a lot of what is in this article.
My D was 10 in 2010 so in this cohort. Yep, some of her peers had cell phones in elementary school. We got her a cheap flip phone with only calling ability when she was in 7th grade so she could call us when she needed to be picked up after sports practice. “Regular” cell phone in high school but no social media until she was 16. She is still rarely on social media and definitely not clued to her phone.
I also feel like she had plenty of independence and play time throughout. Kids in elementary school definitely rode bikes, had play dates, and explored the parks and the woods where we lived. I would say parents kept eyes open for their kids and others. Maybe she’s “too old” for that part of the trend.
Throw in all kinds of sports, summer camp (including sleep away Y camp for a few weeks starting at age 8), summer jobs, etc… I don’t think it was too terribly off from my own childhood.
IMO, the group that seems to be struggling the most today were those kids that were in HS during the Covid isolation period. I think that being alone aggravated the dependence on social media and cell phones, along with not being able to gather together in person.
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I think this article is spot on for a large percentage of Gen Z kids. I will say that my kids are thankfully not part of the cohort. My oldest was born in 1996 and my youngest in 2000. None of my kids had phones until they were in eighth grade (flip phones) and iPhones came in around 10th grade. None of them have been or currently are social media users. I think we had Facebook for two of them because that’s how their clubs communicated. Fortunately to this day none of my kids are glued to their phone; they had/have too many activities to spend much time on them. I’ve also made it a point to spend many times speaking with my kids on the phone. They are very comfortable with telephone conversations, both personal and professional.
The parts of the article that rings truest to me are 1. the impact of comparison to others due to the performative nature of social media and 2. the reduction/impediment of face-to-face social interaction. I think the kids born in Gen Z struggle with basic interactions with each other and that spills over into other areas such as when we read articles about how employees are stressed about the idea of receiving an unannounced/unscheduled phone call and prefer to receive an email or a text. (which ignores the fact that pretty much every phone call ID’d, so one can choose whether or not to answer it). Or in one of the other threads on CC where people were talking about etiquette in this current generation and you have to text before you call someone. Really?
Dating is a hot mess for many and I don’t think dating apps or dating through texting are helping.
I had an Xfinity customer service rep explained to me that the reason it takes so long to get to a live person is because most people prefer texting. Seriously? I can’t stand “help” bots or chats. I don’t want to be “pen-paling” with a customer service rep. I want to explain my problem, and I want them to explain to me how they’re going to fix it.
Contrary to what we’ve been lead to believe, screens, emojis, videos and pictures can’t replace actual human interaction and socialization. Human communication is one of the most basic and critical aspects of being a human being and is the foundation of civilization in many respects. We are social animals. Society is how a group of people interact and live with each other. If we end up just a bunch of isolated anxious individuals, it’s hard to see how society is benefited.
What I find even more puzzling is why it’s so difficult for schools in particular to ban phones. Why is that even an issue? Make it a rule. The kids have to leave their phones in their lockers, or they have to bring them to a specific place and turn them in for the day. Why is that a difficult policy to implement?
And I would ask the same question of why is it so difficult to ban TikTok? There have been conversations and debates for the last few years, at least, about how terrible TikTok is and yet we can’t seem to ban it for the good of our kids? Are their lives really going to be so deficit without it? Why is the seeming default that kids should just be able to do whatever they want with the least amount of impediment?
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At our HS they use Yondr. The phone goes in the pouch at the beginning of class, and comes out at the end of class. That way they can still check their phones between classes, etc. Schools — Yondr
D26 says that after 9th grade, most kids got used to not using their phones during class. So now in 10th grade, some of her teachers don’t feel that they need to bother with the pouches, unless a student forgets and pulls out their phone … then the teacher enforces the pouches.
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But there is the issue of what students do between classes, during lunch or a free period. For centuries, children went to school without phones. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t go back to that model of education for K-12.
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I was in a health care waiting area this morning . A young mother had two adorable twin girls with her - old enough to stand but I don’t know that they were walking yet. For the hour or so that I sat in the waiting area near them each twin had what appeared to be a phone in their hand - it didn’t rattle and they weren’t really playing with it - and mom had her phone out and her face in it.
I kept thinking….a phone, because that’s how you keep occupied. No matter the age.
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It would be more difficult and controversial to ban phone use at our school when kids are not actively in class. At this very urban HS, kids are free to leave the HS campus during lunchtime, and go to restaurants, boba shops etc. Parents also want to remain connected to their kids between classes (especially because many parents have safety concerns due to the urban location of our HS).
My D’s opinion, however, is that she could see the 9th graders becoming much less psychologically tethered to their phones when they got used to the Yondr pouches. Over the course of the year, she said that she observed students using their phones less frequently between classes, and she feels it’s not too bad now that she’s in 10th grade.
(She has very strong opinions about kids using their phones too much, so this is something she often talks to me about 
)
Her older brother started HS before the school got the Yondr pouches, and he said it was absolutely terrible with kids on their phones all day and during classes.
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My H is a HS teacher. The phone use is out of control, and he is given very little support to control it. He has seen concomitant deterioration of classroom participation and attention.
The biggest reason, I think, that most schools don’t ban them is that the major opposition will come from the parents.
I think we all know that our attention spans are not what they used to be, but at least we grew up without the atomization of attention that smartphones represent.
As far as the idea that it is a personal parent, not societal issue, I thoroughly disagree. You can make a decision to ban your own kid from phones/social media, but you can’t change the pariah they will become. it take structural change to remove the norms of smartphones/social media at young ages so that no one has to suffer for wanting to make sane choices. Frankly I don’t think anyone needs that kind of “character-building.” I will agree that organized parental choice can definitely make a difference.
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I have managed to raise a kid that is a senior this year and still doesn’t have a phone (but does borrow one I have when out, on occasion, for communication’s sake). Kid does have free reign of a laptop. It has not been easy, but it has been worth it.
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Our boys had phones. They used them to communicate. Because they were either 0utside playing in the neighborhood, or participating in after school sports, they didn’t have time to spend on their phones. When they got home they’d have homework to do. They obviously followed people on social media, but they didn’t post anything. Neither cared about high school parties, and there was rarely any FOMO. We kept them active and busy to ensure they stayed out of trouble in our large public high school. Some of their friends weren’t so lucky.
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I believe the UK has banned phones in public schools. In speaking with our private school principal, he says any time he’s brought up banning them, it’s the parents who revolt. They want to be able to check up on Bobby during the school day.
An article worth reading:
This is kind of platform issue for me, I absolutely HATE social media, the culture, the influencers, the attention destroying junk. My kids were born in 2004 and 2006, they didn’t have smartphones until high school and they didn’t have social media until they were 16.
My 17yr old still has time limits on the number of hours he can spend on his phone and has to give it to me at night. I’m that evil parent, I think social media is soul crushing. I’d consider my husband and I very liberal when it comes to actually doing things, want to drive to a concert 3hrs away in Seattle? Sure. Want to spend 4hrs on Snapchat a day? Nope.
D23 is in college and obviously doesn’t have any restrictions but I’m hoping her brain is developed enough now for it not to be as big of a draw, but I still think she spends too much time watching stupid stuff on Instagram.
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My oldest is just a few years younger than your D. I actually think that things have gotten considerably worse since 2010, which was only a few years after the iPhone was released (2007? 2008?). .
I didn’t even have a smartphone myself at that time. I did have a flip phone but calls and texts were still metered so I was very cautious about not going over the # of calls or texts per month on my plan in 2010. Even in 2014 when my oldest was ten, I didn’t see most elementary school or middle school kids with phones let alone smartphones. I gave D22 a flip phone fairly early (11) simply because between her after school activities and her siblings, there were times that she needed to call to be picked up places and payphone were starting to be few and far between.
I have not read the Atlantic article yet, but I do think children’s use of smartphones has changed radically between my oldest and youngest (they are ten years apart). Maybe some of it has to do with data being cheaper. And yes, a lot of parents at their schools balk at the notion that phones might be taken away during class (or in the case of BS kids, at night). They feel like it is a safety issue that kids must have their phones at all time. I don’t agree, but I think the majority of parents do. They bring up school shooting incidents as a reason and also the parents just want to know that they can easily get in touch whenever they’d like.
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I just checked my D’s HS handbook and cell phone use is still banned except for during lunch. All calls between students and parents are supposed to go through the main office. That’s how it was when she was in HS too.
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In our community I have heard teachers complain that it is sometimes the parents who are calling and texting their kids during class time.
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How is this enforced? Do students leave phones in lockers, or check them in somewhere?
At my D’s private middle school, students were required to check in their phones at the front desk in the morning, and then pick them up after school. (It didn’t make any difference to her, because we chose not to get our kids phones in middle school 
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Our public HS is too big to do this sort of thing, though. Apparently they had tried a lot of different unsuccessful phone ban enforcement strategies, before we got the Yondr pouches. Teachers started with a small pilot program in 2019, and then the school reached out to parents for donations to buy enough for the whole school. My kids think that the pouches have made a huge difference.