Letters | Help our children step out of virtual playgrounds into real ones
Readers discuss the need to limit phone and social media use, Hong Kong’s role in easing US-China tensions, and the Australian government’s move to provide free solar power
Since the proliferation of mobile phone usage and the rise of social media, there has been no lack of research into their adverse impact on young minds. In one book I read tracking the “great rewiring of childhood” in the US between 2010 and 2015, when teenagers’ social lives moved onto smartphones, social media and gaming, the author found a link to an increase in depression, anxiety and suicide.
I believe Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness carries lessons for parents today. As a member of Gen Z and a teacher of Gen Alpha students, I agree with some of his suggestions for parents to reverse phone-based childhoods and promote play-based childhoods, to protect the mental health of children.
First, parents should resist peer pressure in allowing children to obtain smartphones and access social media too early. Children should only be allowed to own smartphones at 13 and use social media at 16, when they demonstrate sufficient growth and responsibility to use technology appropriately.
This would prevent issues stemming from a phone-based childhood, such as sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and social deprivation from spending inadequate time outdoors and in face-to-face relationships.