Cellphones: parents are the problem

Most parents admit smartphones are bad for kids, but few act like it.

Originally published in the Moultrie News.

The tide is turning against smartphones. More school districts are banning them. Social media platforms are being sued. They’re now recognized as a cause of youth depression and anxiety. But I still see many kids using them. What is the disconnect?

Parents. Most parents admit smartphones are bad for kids, but few act like it.

You mention school phone bans, which make sense behaviorally and educationally. Phones are cited as a chief reason for the steady decline in scores since 2012.

But guess who opposes school bans? Parents. A recent poll from the National Parents Union shows only 32 percent of parents support the bans.

Some parents insist their kids need phones for continual communication, and “continual” isn’t an exaggeration. Every teacher has stories of parents emailing complaints about a test that’s still in progress or a disciplinary incident that hasn’t been reported yet. To me, unhinged helicoptering isn’t a strong enough reason to oppose a ban.

Some parents oppose bans because they worry more about kids’ physical safety than their mental health. These parents help prove psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s theories about the rise in youth mental deterioration. Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation argues we’ve overprotected kids in the real world and underprotected them online.

Over fears of their being abducted or bullied, we’ve restricted children’s independent play. Haidt notes that before the “every kid glued to a screen” revolution in 2010, teenage boys were much more likely to break bones than any other demographic. Post 2010, the numbers have plunged, and they’re now less apt to break bones than their fathers and grandfathers. Instead of playing outside, kids are inside online.

But while parents bubble wrap kids in real life, they let them roam free on the internet. Teachers can attest that most parents don’t have a clue what their kids are really doing online. Off the record, kids freely admit that they have apps their parents don’t know about; that they regularly send and view pornography; that cyberbullying is rampant; that they use fake personas across multiple platforms; that they’re on their devices constantly, even when parents think they’re asleep. Parents are terrified of the quiet old man who lives down the street, but indifferent to the 5 billion strangers controlling their kids online.

Haidt shows something else teachers can affirm: that phone-based childhoods cause “social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction.” We can also add educational malnourishment, cultural illiteracy, relationship dysfunctionality, and a monstrously divisive generation gap. “If grown-ups don’t take action,” Haidt says, “they could risk the mental health of all young people indefinitely.”

Some parents delude themselves, rationalizing that social media somehow helps their kids. Do you know any adolescent who is healthier because of social media? Have you met a single person who is more interesting (or interested) as a result of it? Even its name is a misnomer: social media has made people more socially maladjusted than ever before.

Parents know all this, yet they continue to toss smartphones into the cradle. They worry their kids will be viewed as too “different” if they use a flip phone or computer to communicate with friends. Meanwhile, they’re oblivious to the sinister ways social media destroys their children’s self-esteem.

They harass their children to “put those phones down” while doing nothing about it. Then they waste irredeemable hours scrolling their own social media troughs. Parents and kids can be physically next to each other at dinner, but galaxies apart emotionally, each lost in their exclusive virtual realms.

Most parents have conceded. Their kids already have phones, and it would be too hard to put the genie back in the bottle. Parents: this genie doesn’t need to go back; it needs to be obliterated, and only you possess the power to do it.

Haidt encourages parents to ask themselves, “What did you love about your childhood?” Most answer spending time with family or playing outside with friends. Many lament that phones have prevented their kids from having those experiences. They shake their heads as if someone in this world ought to do something about it.

I wonder who that might be.

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Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.