Jonathan Haidt’s recent co-authored Atlantic article, “What Kids Told Us About How to Get Them Off Their Phones,” (paywall) certainly caught our eye. After all, his book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024) has been pivotal in reframing the debate about the impact phones and social media are having on our kids.   

Haidt worked with The Harris Poll to interview 500 children ages 8 to 12. In short, here’s what we learned:

1. The “phone-based childhood is in full force:” “A majority reported having smartphones, and about half of the 10-to-12-year-olds said that most or all of their friends use social media.    
2. “Most of the children in our survey said that they aren’t allowed to be out in public at all without an adult. Fewer than half of the 8-9-year-olds have gone down a grocery-store aisle alone; more than a quarter aren’t allowed to play unsupervised even in their own front yard.”
3. Nearly three-quarters of the children in our survey agreed with the statement “I would spend less time online if there were more friends in my neighborhood to play with in person.”

We may not be overly surprised by these findings, but the upstream role that parents play in their kids’ screen use is often overlooked. As parents have overestimated the degree of risk involved in free-play, the culture has been quick to shift. Pick-up games in the neighborhood have given way to “safer,” more controlled activities. “Quietly,” Haidt says, “we’ve shifted from telling our kids to ‘go outside;’ instead, we essentially tell them to ‘go online.’”

Haidt’s survey asked kids to share what type of non-phone-non-screen “kinds of freedom” they long for. Haidt continues, “We asked them to pick their favorite way to spend time with friends: unstructured play, such as shooting hoops and exploring their neighborhood; participating in activities organized by adults, such as playing Little League and doing ballet; or socializing online.”

Their findings? “There was a clear winner,” he writes. Kids vastly prefer (45% of responses) free-play with their friends (in person). That’s right. Isn’t the irony rich? So many of us parents complain about how children seem to be drawn away from real-life encounters with peers…and into the online world. Yet, when kids are actually asked, they say that they would prefer free-play time with their peers out there in the real world (and yes, without parents hovering).

Haidt summarizes the findings here: “Children want to meet up in person, no screens or supervision. But because so many parents restrict their ability to socialize in the real world on their own, kids resort to the one thing that allows them to hang out with no adults hovering: their phones.”  

“Without real-world freedom,” Haidt writes, “children don’t get the chance to develop competence, confidence, and the ability to solve everyday problems.” Indeed, independence and unsupervised play are associated with positive mental-health outcomes. Without them, a sort of sickness enters the system.

We haven’t done the research to put this well, but haven’t we seen this movie before with alcohol and tobacco? Back in the day, some of our parents and grandparents chain-smoked in the kitchen. Then the science caught up, the case was made, and many pulled back from addiction.

We thank God for the army of people out there who, like Jonathan Haidt, are rigorously exposing the past 10-20 years of our phone and social media chain-smoking and calling it out for what it is: a toxic carcinogen that often slips within the sacred four walls of our domestic church or Trinity House.  

From our Trinity House perspective, we can’t help but see some encouraging alignment here—between the data, and the “Trinity House Way” that so many of you have already woven into your daily lives. Clearly, our kids desire bonding, time with peers and with you, their parents. Made in the imago Dei, the image of the Trinitarian relationship, our kids are hard-wired for in-person relationships. The data show that billions of Silicon Valley funding of social media platforms cannot and will not rewire what God has put in place.

As we place healthy limits and boundaries on phones and social media, let us embrace the short-term friction and take heart! We are only doing what is in accord with the reality of God’s handiwork: in our souls, minds, and bodies. And this study gives us new impetus to open the door and invite our kids to play in the yard or nearby park. Please God, it’s not too late to throw the cigarettes away and get back to the joy of building our Trinity House and giving our kids the taste of heaven they deserve!