Prince Harry, lengthy recognized for being an outspoken advocate on (particularly males’s) psychological well being points, is at the moment centered on a really tough downside: that of social media and its results on youth.
“In many cases, the smartphone is stealing young people’s childhood,” he mentioned in a dialog, a video of which was completely shared with Fortune this week, with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, writer of The Anxious Technology.
Haidt—whose 4 foundational smartphone guidelines have impressed each celebration and pushback—couldn’t agree extra, explaining to Harry the premise of his guide: That folks born after 1995 (Gen Z, roughly) all through the English-speaking world hit puberty with excessive charges of anxiousness, despair, self-harm, and suicide, which all rose sharply between 2010 and 2012. And that it was no coincidence—however as a substitute a direct results of the smartphone.
“Young people trade in their flip phones for smartphones,” Haidt mentioned about that second of generational shifting, “and now with a front-facing camera, high-speed internet, a million apps that are competing with each other to hook kids’ attention. So, the ‘anxious generation’ is helping us understand the incredible destructive force of this transformation of childhood … and what we can do now to stop that from happening and to help those who already have been through it.”
Haidt and the Duke of Sussex sat down for the intimate dialogue (see the complete video, under) about social media and psychological well being as a part of Harry’s Archewell Basis 2024 Perception Periods—public conversations, highlights of which seem in a brand new Perception Report—concerning the influence of know-how, with the voices of youth entrance and middle.
Right here, a few of the strongest takeaways from the spirited dialog.
Mother and father vs. social media corporations
Certainly one of Haidt’s largest worries concerning the present state of parenting and social media is that, “We are overprotecting our children in the real world and under-protecting them online,” he mentioned. “And both of those moves are mistakes. They’re bad for development.” It’s why he advocates for no smartphones earlier than highschool, no social media earlier than 16, phone-free faculties, and extra unsupervised play and childhood independence.
It’s additionally why, Harry mentioned, “It’s very easy for social media companies to point the finger at parents and say, ‘Well, you know, this is down to you. This is down to your parenting.’”
However that’s an argument that Haidt rejects.
“If there were some parents who were getting this wrong and most parents were getting it right, then I’d be very receptive to that argument,” he mentioned. “But once kids get a phone and social media, the rest of family life turns into a fight over screen time. And this is happening everywhere. This is happening in Silicon Valley, where the parents know what’s going on.”
So why will we give our 10 12 months olds a smartphone? “The main reason,” Haidt mentioned, “is because everyone else did. We don’t want our daughter to be the only one who’s left out. I’m facing this now with my 14-year-old daughter on Snapchat. So the tech companies put us in a bind, and then they’re trying to blame us for what they did.” It’s why he’s additionally an advocate of collective motion, or mother and father banding collectively to comply with delay the acquisition of smartphones for his or her youngsters.
What about smartphones for security?
By means of his Perception Periods, mentioned Harry, he’s spoken with mother and father who say they offer their youngsters telephones at a youthful age to maintain them secure.
“It’s a double edged sword,” he mentioned. “They want them to have their phone at school in case of emergency, but once, like any kid, you have your phone, even if you’re told you’re not allowed to download that app, kids have a way of working around it.”
Haidt’s not shopping for the security argument, although. “If you want to give your kid a phone, so if anything goes wrong they can call you, great. Give them a phone. Just don’t give them a supercomputer connected to everyone in the world… They don’t need that. The millennials had flip phones. They went through puberty with flip phones to call each other, text each other, meet up. It came out fine.”
Gen Z, alternatively, “went through puberty with a supercomputer blocking out almost everything else in life,” he mentioned. “Everything goes down: Much less time with friends, much less sunlight, very many fewer books, many fewer hobbies. You take almost everything out of childhood. You replace it with this and a bunch of million short videos. It’s not much of a childhood.”
The ‘myth’ of social media as lifeline
Prince Harry then raised the concept of social media having a optimistic—and even life-saving—facet.
“Social media, we know, to a large extent, is giving an outlet, an added resource, to kids that perhaps don’t feel comfortable coming to us to talk about their issues and their troubles and their worries,” he mentioned. “Kids online will be feeling more connected with complete strangers on social media. So how do you, if you’re a parent, know that your kid is getting good out of social media?”
Haidt mentioned it’s “one of Meta’s favorite talking points” that “social media is a lifeline for LGBTQ kids, for kids from marginalized communities. And that’s just not true.”
What’s true, he mentioned, “is that the internet was great for them. The internet solved all these problems in the ’90s. If you’re a gay kid, you’re not out to anyone in a rural part of America or England, the internet was amazing. You could find information, you could find people like you, and you could communicate.” However social media, Haidt insisted, has modified all that.
“It’s no longer even about just me connecting to you,” he mentioned. “It’s now about an algorithm-driven information feed that sends content material to you. This isn’t what they want. If in case you have any particular curiosity, yow will discover that with Google. You don’t want an algorithm to feed you stuff.
So it’s “a myth,” he mentioned, that Instagram and TikTok are lifelines. “The research, I think, is very clear: When kids have a best friend or especially a small group [of friends], they generally do well. When kids don’t have a close friend or close group, they’re much less likely to do well. When you have 300 connections, you don’t have time for anyone.”
Extra on psychological well being:
