Four Interconnected Causes:

• Overprotection of Children in the Physical World - Reacting to stories of "stranger-danger", adults began moving toward overprotection at home and at school in the late 90's to early 2000's. Overprotection reduces opportunity for kids to experience and adapt to normal stress, which supports tolerance to stress later in life.

• The Loss of Play-Based Childhood - Imaginative play is essential for optimal child development, and our current generations of children, youth, and young adults have experienced less of it than any known generation before due to overprotection and the rise of "screen-based childhood."

• Loss of Loosely Supervised Play - Loosely supervised play is another element of childhood that is essential for optimal development, because it creates opportunity for children and youth to adapt to developmentally appropriate stress, and to naturally develop conflict resolution skills.

• Early/Frequent Access to Smartphones and Social Media - "Screen-based childhood" began to supplant "play-based childhood" when parents began keeping kids home in an attempt to increase safety, and increased with the advent of smartphones with social media apps.  The remarkable negative impact of access to smartphones and social media is outlined below.

(From the resources titled, "The Anxious Generation", "After Babel", and "Let Grow" listed below.)

Watch

The Anxious Generation - In the book, The Anxious Generation (March 2024), Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time, and then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration.  The website contains Educator and Parent Resources to support "restoring play-based childhood."

After Babel - This Substack resource is Jonathan Haidt's effort to "think through, in public, the profound psychological and sociological changes that occurred in the 2010s when human social and political life migrated onto platforms curated by a few for-profit companies whose business models drove them to maximize engagement."  This link leads to the "About" page, which is the author's recommended starting place for this resource.

Let Grow - Nonprofit organization founded with the intention of encouraging families and agencies to emphasize "mixed-age, unstructured free play to develop young people’s ability to work together, make friends, and grow resilient."  The site contains FREE School Program Resources for educators, and Parent and Family Resources for at-home activities.

Teens and Tech: What Difference Does Family Structure Make? - A research based guide containing research on the overlap between smartphones, social media, and families from Dr. Jean Twenge and colleagues.  Contains recommendations for rules and structure to improve teen and young adult mental health.

Generation Tech - Dr. Jean Twenge is one of the foremost researchers on the impact of smartphones and social media on teen and young adult mental health.  Click on this link to travel to her Substack full of articles and resource information on that impact.  Many articles are "paid access only" but she frequently sends free articles via email with emerging research trends.

Project Liberty - Project Liberty, a global impact organization, is bringing together a team of organizations, technologists and activists who believe that technology should be safe for young people. Their campaign aims to build awareness and drive action around the issue of technology’s impact on the mental health of children around the world.

The Screenagers Project - An award winning film that probes into the vulnerable corners of family life and depicts the messy struggles over social media, video games, and academics.  The film offers solutions on how families can help kids navigate an ever-changing digital world.   Read the press release here and watch the movie trailer here.