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The Case for Causality, Part 1: The Fundamental Flaws of The Only Meta-Analysis of Social Media Reduction Experiments
A recent meta-analysis contains yet overlooks evidence that multi-week social media reduction experiments consistently improve mental health
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
63
A Cure for Child Anxiety Hiding (and Seeking) in Plain Sight
Don’t just go phone free: Start a Play Club at your school too.
 • 
Kevin Stinehart
59
Should Schools Ban Phones?
Jacqueline Nesi evaluates the evidence related to phone-free schools
 • 
Jacqueline Nesi, PhD
68
Most Popular
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Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest
 • Jon Haidt
454
Social Media is a Major Cause of the Mental Illness Epidemic in Teen Girls. Here’s the Evidence.
 • Jon Haidt
308
Your Boyfriend Isn't Your Camera Man
 • Freya India
274
A Time We Never Knew
 • Freya India
154
Aren’t You Lonely?
 • Freya India
124
Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health
 • Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch
120

The International Mental Health Crisis

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The Global Loss of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
Happiness used to be U-shaped by age, with middle age the least happy. Not anymore. Young people are now the least happy.
 • 
David Blanchflower
 and 
Alex Bryson
51
The Girls Are Not Alright: Responses to Three Claims that the Youth Mental Health Crisis Is Exaggerated
Why changes in stigma and self-reporting procedures cannot explain the international decline of adolescent girls’ mental health.
 • 
Zach Rausch
65
The Youth Mental Health Crisis is International Part 4: Europe
Why girls from wealthy, secular, and individualistic nations were hit hardest.
 • 
Zach Rausch
, 
Thomas Potrebny
, and 
Jon Haidt
51
The Youth Mental Health Crisis is International, Unless You Rely on a Flawed International Dataset (The GBD)
Researchers need to stop using the Global Burden of Disease study when analyzing mental health trends
 • 
Zach Rausch
29
Suicide Rates Are up for Gen Z Across the Anglosphere, Especially for Girls
It’s not just anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
108

The Case Against The Phone-Based Childhood

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The Case for Causality, Part 1: The Fundamental Flaws of The Only Meta-Analysis of Social Media Reduction Experiments
A recent meta-analysis contains yet overlooks evidence that multi-week social media reduction experiments consistently improve mental health
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
63
Journalist Sends Kids off on a Smartphone-Free Camping Trip – Unsupervised. Adults Quake. Kids Flourish.
The Sunday Times (UK) just ran a major story illustrating the twin prescriptions in The Anxious Generation
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
 and 
Jon Haidt
60
Big News: The Surgeon General Calls for a Warning Label on Social Media
Dr. Murthy is right. The evidence of widespread harm to adolescents is now strong.
 • 
Jon Haidt
 and 
Zach Rausch
91
The Youth Rebellion Is Growing
Seven Gen Z Leaders Working to Reduce the Harms Caused by the Phone-Based Childhood
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
34
On The Degrading Effects of Life Online
How social media makes us worse people
 • 
Jon Haidt
 and 
Freya India
94

The Case for Independence, Free Play, and Responsibility in the Real World

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Journalist Sends Kids off on a Smartphone-Free Camping Trip – Unsupervised. Adults Quake. Kids Flourish.
The Sunday Times (UK) just ran a major story illustrating the twin prescriptions in The Anxious Generation
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
 and 
Jon Haidt
60
The Upstream Cause of the Youth Mental Health Crisis is the Loss of Community
We've forgotten what community really means.
 • 
Seth Kaplan
85
How Phones Are Making Parents the Anxious Generation
Smartphones are trust blockers for parents
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
110
Treating Childhood Anxiety with a Mega-Dose of Independence
What therapists can do to help restore the play-based childhood
 • 
Camilo Ortiz
51
Neighborhoods that Nurture: Why The Play-Based Childhood Requires More Than Just Putting Down the Phone
It's easier to create “play-based childhoods” if we can simultaneously create vibrant “community-based childhoods” to support them.
 • 
Seth Kaplan
48

Voices of Gen Z

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What Happened to FOMO?
We now fear taking part more than we fear missing out
 • 
Freya India
110
Aren’t You Lonely?
Friendship has become another joyless thing to do on a screen
 • 
Freya India
124
A Gen Z Perspective on Why We Must Pass the Kids Online Safety Act
Social media holds immense promise to connect us. But to reap the benefits, we need to regulate it first.
 • 
Sam Hiner
50
CALLING ALL GEN Z: Phone Free Friday Summer Challenge!
This Summer, Let’s Reclaim Our Time (Starting June 14th)
 • 
Freya India
36
Your Boyfriend Isn't Your Camera Man
“Her need for me to catalogue her life is slowly draining my soul"
 • 
Freya India
274

What Parents Can Do Now

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One of the Best Documentaries on the Loss and Recovery Of Childhood Independence
“Chasing Childhood” contrasts the play-based childhood of the 1980s with the over-supervised and fearful childhoods of today. It’s great for inspiring…
 • 
Margaret Munzer Loeb
 and 
Eden Wurmfeld
19
How Phones Are Making Parents the Anxious Generation
Smartphones are trust blockers for parents
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
110
Modern Luddites: On Being a Digital Minimalist Family in a Tech-Saturated World
Advice from the author of Childhood Unplugged
 • 
Katherine Johnson Martinko
45
Treating Childhood Anxiety with a Mega-Dose of Independence
What therapists can do to help restore the play-based childhood
 • 
Camilo Ortiz
51
A Parents Guide to Understanding the Harms of the Phone-Based Childhood, Along With Ten Tips for Rolling It Back
Introducing Catherine Price, who writes books on fun and on phones, and offers ten tips for helping you and your children scroll less and live more
 • 
Catherine Price
23

What Schools and Educators Can Do Now

View all
A Cure for Child Anxiety Hiding (and Seeking) in Plain Sight
Don’t just go phone free: Start a Play Club at your school too.
 • 
Kevin Stinehart
59
Should Schools Ban Phones?
Jacqueline Nesi evaluates the evidence related to phone-free schools
 • 
Jacqueline Nesi, PhD
68
Transform Your School: The Complete Guide to Going Phone-Free
A newly released resource from The Phone-Free Schools Movement and Fairplay
 • 
Mileva Repasky
44
How Schools Can Help End The Phone-Based Childhood
Five lessons for secular schools, from our experience in Jewish Day Schools
 • 
Caroline Bryk
34
Good News For Anxious Kids (And Parents)
A simple homework project can make your child more ready to face the world.
 • 
Lenore Skenazy
27

What Governments and Tech Companies Can Do

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The Surgeon General Has New Social Media Guidelines. Minnesota Already Made Some of Them Into Law.
As Minnesota’s policies gain national attention, their recent social media law is an example worth following.
 • 
Ravi Iyer
52
A Gen Z Perspective on Why We Must Pass the Kids Online Safety Act
Social media holds immense promise to connect us. But to reap the benefits, we need to regulate it first.
 • 
Sam Hiner
50
How Apple, Google, and Microsoft Can Help Parents Protect Children
The case for device-based age verification
 • 
Ravi Iyer
34
​​​​​Keeping Our Kids Safe Online​​
Reflections from a bereaved mother
 • 
Kristin Bride
29
The Case for Phone-Free Schools
The research is clear: Smartphones undermine attention, learning, relationships, and belonging.
 • 
Jon Haidt
137

Responses to Skeptics

View all
The Case for Causality, Part 1: The Fundamental Flaws of The Only Meta-Analysis of Social Media Reduction Experiments
A recent meta-analysis contains yet overlooks evidence that multi-week social media reduction experiments consistently improve mental health
 • 
Zach Rausch
 and 
Jon Haidt
63
How has mental health changed across demographic groups since 2010?
If social media is uniquely beneficial to adolescents in marginalized communities, we might expect to see their rates of anxiety and depression increase…
 • 
Jean M. Twenge
50
Big News: The Surgeon General Calls for a Warning Label on Social Media
Dr. Murthy is right. The evidence of widespread harm to adolescents is now strong.
 • 
Jon Haidt
 and 
Zach Rausch
91
Is The Gallup World Poll Reliable?
The way some researchers use the GWP can explain why they fail to find effects of digital technology on youth mental health
 • 
David Blanchflower
6
The Global Loss of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
Happiness used to be U-shaped by age, with middle age the least happy. Not anymore. Young people are now the least happy.
 • 
David Blanchflower
 and 
Alex Bryson
51
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