“We are over-protecting children in the real world while under-protecting them online” says Jonathan Haidt, author of THE ANXIOUS GENERATION who maintains that the environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development. Haidt traces the current mental health crisis to the mid-2010s when smartphones and social media began to reshape the social landscape for adolescents. Cambridge Forum explores these troubling developments in The Anxious i-Generation.
Furthermore, Haidt argues that smartphone technologies have led to over-parenting e.g. constant notifications and GPS tracking of children’s whereabouts. This in turn, has robbed an entire generation of the resilience, coping skills and independence needed to navigate everyday situations and in turn, created unprecedented levels of societal anxiety. The dramatic decline in mental health in teens has been accompanied by decreases in academic scores for math, reading and science. CF asks what happens when we take phones out of schools and replace screen time with normal extracurricular activities that encourage independence and healthy risk-taking? Well, some forward-thinking teachers and psychologists have been doing exactly that with very promising results.
Our panel consists of Catherine Price, science journalist, founder of Screen/Life Balance and author of How to break up with your phone; Camilo Otiz, Associate Professor of Psychology at Long Island University and licensed psychologist in private practice; Lenore Skenazy, president of the nonprofit, Let Grow and author of Free Range Kids plus Shane Voss, Head of Mountain Middle School in Durango, CO. where he has created a phone-free school environment since 2013.
