“Parents are overprotective in the real world and underprotective in the virtual world.” ~ Jonathan Haidt

In his book The Anxious Generation, author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He argues that smartphones and social media are impairing children’s mental health.

Haidt contends that children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s.

He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt proposes the following four simple rules that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood:

• No smartphones until high school
• No social media before age 16
• Phone-free schools
• More independent and free play 

Source: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness