Great article! Something that worked for me was allowing my high school daughter to text her friends on my phone. I let her use my phone for 20 minutes a day in the kitchen. We got her a phone Senior year of high school. I think it was the best compromise and seemed to work for us during the high school years. She got her phone fix without it controlling her life!
With all due respect, this article is wrong on so many levels, not to mention unrealistic. All such delaying will do, realistically speaking, will hide these problems in the future. And the junk neuroscience this article cites just keeps on getting debunked every year.
(By the way, the human brain continues to develop well into the 30s and 40s, and perhaps even beyond that. That basic fact has been known as of 2010, nearly a decade and a half ago.)
It won't be long before you will say even 18 is too young. Make it 19 to "keep it out of the high schools", perhaps. Oh wait, nevermind, make it 21 then. Or even 25 or 30! Natch. But wait, we actually have a natural experiment on those who didn't get access to smartphones or social media until well into their twenties, due to the fact that these technologies simply hadn't been invented yet. They are called Elder Millennials, aka my own generation. And how did we end up faring as a result? Not very well, it seems, if the statistics are any indication. The best advice we Elder Millennials can give to Gen Z, Alpha, and beyond is, "don't be like us".
Excellent and eye opening article!
Thank you - we are learning so much about this age and seeing that the social meida experiment on teens is not working. Thanks for reading!
Great article! Something that worked for me was allowing my high school daughter to text her friends on my phone. I let her use my phone for 20 minutes a day in the kitchen. We got her a phone Senior year of high school. I think it was the best compromise and seemed to work for us during the high school years. She got her phone fix without it controlling her life!
With all due respect, this article is wrong on so many levels, not to mention unrealistic. All such delaying will do, realistically speaking, will hide these problems in the future. And the junk neuroscience this article cites just keeps on getting debunked every year.
(By the way, the human brain continues to develop well into the 30s and 40s, and perhaps even beyond that. That basic fact has been known as of 2010, nearly a decade and a half ago.)
It won't be long before you will say even 18 is too young. Make it 19 to "keep it out of the high schools", perhaps. Oh wait, nevermind, make it 21 then. Or even 25 or 30! Natch. But wait, we actually have a natural experiment on those who didn't get access to smartphones or social media until well into their twenties, due to the fact that these technologies simply hadn't been invented yet. They are called Elder Millennials, aka my own generation. And how did we end up faring as a result? Not very well, it seems, if the statistics are any indication. The best advice we Elder Millennials can give to Gen Z, Alpha, and beyond is, "don't be like us".
(Mic drop)