Opinion: Take away your kid’s smartphone — for their sake

Like 68% of Americans, I am a social media user. I’m almost never far away from my smartphone, and that’s typical — over 90% of adults in the U.S. have and use smartphones.

We’ve reached a point in time where it seems bizarre to think that we didn’t always have a single device that fits in our pockets with which we can take and send photos, read the local newspaper (which you can do everyday with a digital Gazette subscription and our app,) order a prescription refill, deposit a check, watch a movie, and have a face-to-face conversation.

It wasn’t always that way. Like most Gazette readers, I remember a time when taking and sharing photos meant bringing a camera, peering through a viewfinder, and getting film developed into prints at a photo store.

Back then, reading the newspaper meant actually picking up the newspaper. Ordering medication refills meant calling the pharmacy ahead or waiting in a longer line. Depositing a check meant visiting your bank.

Today, I can do all that through a smartphone app.

Playing movies once required not only a separate machine hooked up to your TV — you also had to either buy or rent a DVD or videocassette, which had to actually be in stock at the store.

And before the days of Zoom or FaceTime, a face-to-face conversation required two or more people to actually be in the same room. Meetings at work meant wearing business attire and going into the office. Nowadays, some people who work from home and attend meetings through Zoom might not always be wearing pants.

(For the record, I attend all my Zoom meetings fully clothed.)

Many of us also remember a time when keeping in touch with friends and family required actually contacting them. Now, on our Facebooks and Instagrams, we just post pictures and written updates and let them be viewed by our friends and “followers” amid a sea of political opinions, short videos, and peoples’ random thoughts (or rants.)

We don’t have to actually interact with each other. We just share what’s going on in our lives and let the algorithm show it to others.

I’m not as youthful as I was when everyone listed to music on items called “compact discs” and “cassette tapes.” But I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last few weeks reflecting on the past for a reason: Today is the last day of my 30s. After today, I will no longer be young and beautiful. Starting tomorrow, I will be 40. (And still beautiful.)

My Millennial peers and I are completing our youth, taking our place behind our Generation X elders entering the stage of life that involves back pain and falling asleep with 20 minutes left in the episode. (You know who you are.) We’re readying to hand the baton of young adulthood to Generation Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012. Someday, they will pass it to Generation Alpha, the generation born between 2013 and 2025.

As reluctant as I am to turn — gulp — 40, I don’t weep for the youth of my earlier years. I’ve gotten what I was supposed to get out of those years. Like Gen Xers and Boomers before me, I’m content knowing I came of age during simpler — and happier — times.

It’s the youth of today for whom I weep — those who will never get to know a world without smartphones and social media.

And despite my not having children, I’m offering this advice: Parents, keep your adolescents away from both.

Evidence as to why has been mounting for a number of years now. Studies are increasingly linking smartphones and social media use to a decline in youth mental health. While it’s difficult to establish that the former directly causes the latter, studies show that use of both smartphones and social media correlate with a significant increase in depression, loneliness and self-harm in adolescents.

A 2020 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, for example, reported that the number of teens reporting “moderate to severe mental distress” in Ontario increased from 24% to 39% in only four years, between 2013 and 2017.

A 2019 article measured the rate of depressive symptoms in U.S. adolescents between 1991 and 2018. After falling steadily since 1991, measures of depressive symptoms in youth rose sharply in 2011, continuing to skyrocket every year on average through 2018.

Between 2014 and 2022, smartphone use in teens jumped from 73% to 95%.

The use of social media is rampant among teens. Research from Gallup shows that more than half of U.S. teenagers spend at least four hours a day on social media. When broken down by age group, 62% of 17-year-olds averaged 5.8 hours a day on social media, with video streaming apps TikTok and YouTube cited as the most commonly used.

It isn’t hard to consider why: Smartphones and social media provide entertainment with little to no effort. TikTok users can mindlessly swipe through one video after another with no end to the offerings. Facebook with its Reels feature offers the same, which can cause even a grown adult can have a hard time putting their smartphone down, lest they miss out on the next video of a cat climbing a tree.

There’s no structure and no limit. For kids who are still mastering impulse control, that could be disastrous for developing the ability to resist the desire for instant gratification.

For my generation and every generation before me, our exploration of the world was through interaction and activity. Even much of the entertainment we enjoyed at home had to first be pursued and obtained: Going to Blockbuster to rent a movie. Going to the mall to buy a new album or hitting “record” on a blank cassette tape while the desired song played over the radio. Dialing our friends’ seven-digit phone numbers on a landline phone.

Today, any young person with a smartphone and an internet connection can watch TV or a movie, listen to music, talk with multiple friends at once, check out what their peers are doing, and play video games with other players — all through a six-inch screen they hold in their hand. If their smartphones have delivery apps with their parents’ credit cards linked, they can even order a burger and fries or pizza.

20 years ago, kids would need to grab their allowance and spend the whole day at the mall to accomplish all that. Today, a teenager can do it all without ever leaving the house or even getting dressed for the day, thanks to that sophisticated little device.

Statistics from 2019 — before the pandemic, notably — show that as many as 53% of 11-year-olds have their own smartphones.

It might keep them entertained, but it’s hardly engaging. It might give them something to do, but it’s hardly satisfying.

It’s no wonder that a kid spending all day in their room on their smartphone would report feelings of loneliness.

No wonder that kids with a handheld portal to limitless content with none of the structure or boundaries they desperately need at their age would report feeling overwhelmed and anxious.

No wonder that kids watching other people on social media platforms live seemingly cooler lives than their own would report feeling depressed.

That’s not to say that smartphones or social media are purely evil. I use the Facebook every day. I post to the Twitter every now and then. I lost 87 pounds and kept most of it off by working out to YouTube videos. I’ve been romanced by a number of kind, intelligent men — doctors, professors, scientists, public servants, etc. — whom I never would have met were it not for dating apps. And I’m entitled to a few free sandwiches at my local sub shop for frequently using their app.

But I’ve been able to use these tools responsibly because I first had time to grow into real life and the real world and learn how to navigate them both.

Recognizing the disruption that smartphones can have to a kid’s social and educational growth, some states are considering — or already practicing — bans on smartphones in schools. Some individual schools are also taking the initiative. Hoover High School in Des Moines, which is part of the largest school district in the state, announced in May that starting next school year, smartphones will be banned as part of the “Hoover Mental Health Movement.”

That step, while positive, only applies to school hours. Parents, the rest is up to you.

Halt plans to give your kids a smartphone until at least age 16. Yes, 16. If they need a way to call and text, introduce them to their new vintage little friend the flip phone. They might have a difficult time sending a text, but they won’t fixate on videos on a tiny screen for five hours every day. That’s a win.

Same with social media, especially the more Gen Z-focused platforms like TikTok and Snapchat — hold off until at least age 16. They might not learn the latest TikTok dance fad, but they might be in better moods and even willing to talk to you at dinner.

And maybe — just maybe, parents — you could stand to set your own smartphone aside more often.

It’s your call, but it’s their future. Give them the gift their lame Millennial and Boomer parents and grandparents had growing up: the chance to take their time growing up, and to enjoy just being a kid.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com