Phone Postures

You know when you hear or read something that sparks your interest and then you just can’t unknow it and start seeing signs of it everywhere? Like when you get a new car and it is blue and then all of a sudden, you notice SO MANY other blue cars? 

I recently read the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and now I cannot stop noticing us all on our phones all the time, especially youth. 

I have written about being present, and we have done podcast episodes on taking a break from social media. This isn’t anything new, but the data that is presented in this book is STAGGERING. Plus it validates my love/hate relationship I have with my own phone and delaying getting my kids smartphones and social media for as long as possible. 

The premise of the book is that kids have moved from a “play based” childhood to a “phone based” childhood with most kids getting their first smartphone in late elementary or middle school, during the huge developmental milestone of puberty. The author, an NYU professor and social psychologist, posits that smartphones and social media (combined with less freedom, independence and play) have rewired children’s brains leading to the mental health crisis we find ourselves in, and he names four major harms: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. He also frames smartphones as “experience blockers”. If you are on your phone, you are NOT doing other things like interacting face to face with your peers, playing, noticing the sounds of springtime birds chirping, or just letting your mind wander. Haidt also has an incredible amount of data that shows the link between social media and smartphone use and negative mental health outcomes–anxiety, depression, self harm and suicide. Hence the title of the book. 

Even though this sounds like a textbook, it reads like a story with data, sociology and psychology weaved in, and as a parent in 2024, I related to all the stories told in this book. The phenomenon he is explaining–I see it, read about it, and talk about it with other parents, teachers, and health professionals. It is a thing that we all kind of hate but everyone is doing it so we don’t know how to not participate. 

The end of the book gives action items for parents, educators, governments, and communities to make changes to get back to a “play based” childhood–i.e. the kind of childhood I, and likely those of you reading this, also enjoyed. It is not just about delaying smartphones and social media usage and having screen-free zones, but also about adding back in opportunities for play, time with their friends, and opportunities to be independent.

So now I can’t stop seeing the phone posture everywhere–myself included!–someone hunched over, eyes looking down at their small screen in hand, there, at the baseball game, at the meeting, sitting at dinner, but not really there. My personal goal for the summer is to break up with my phone (sigh, yet again) and use tools to help me–app limits and pre-set downtimes, plus a parking spot for my phone when I don’t really need it, and a kindle stacked with books to be read. If you need a summer read, I cannot recommend The Anxious Generation enough!

Have you heard about this book? What do you think? I would love to hear about it. Email me at cdziembowski@dtownctc.org  or send me a DM on Instagram!