Jonathan Haidt

We thought, it's okay if we don't let them play anymore.

They've got the virtual world.

for social media, seven to nine if you include video games and porn and all the other things that the kids are doing.

But just social media is five hours a day average.

The most important things they're doing less of in order are any kind of face-to-face contact with their friends or family, listening to their teachers because they're doing this in school too because most schools let them keep their phones in their pockets,

flirting or gossiping or talking with their friends in school or at lunch, because even at lunch, if you have phones in your pockets at lunch, they're doing what's called continuous partial attention.

So they're continually paying attention to what's going on in their phones.

And then they're also sometimes having conversations with a kid next to them.

In other words, there's no real quality human connection.

That's the most important thing.

If you take most human connection out of childhood, there's not a lot left.

Number two, sleep.

Kids really, really need sleep.

We're now discovering sleep is so much more important than we thought back when I was in graduate school.

Kids are getting less sleep, especially those who have a device in bed.

I mean, imagine if you had to suddenly give five to ten hours a day to some new thing.

Like, that pushes out everything else.

Sure.

OK, so let's start by setting the scene.

We have a massive collapse of mental health that happens in a synchronized format in many countries, especially to girls, happens at the same time.