Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation came out a year ago. In 2023 I wrote a lot about his theory, presented in the book, that smart phones and social media were harming children. Today, the Free Press published an update written by Haidt on how his campaign to change minds and eventually rules has gone a lot better than he expected.
The book catalyzed a movement around the world. Most spectacularly, schools, states, and entire countries implemented phone-free school policies, and Australia raised the age for opening social media accounts to 16.
This went well beyond our wildest expectations of what could happen.
The rest of the update is broken up into four proposed norms or areas of focus, starting with the push to limit smartphones to high school aged kids.
At lightning speed, we’ve seen parents of younger kids commit to delaying smartphones, and…
