Summary
Chapter 2—What Children Need to Do in Childhood
Haidt asks readers to imagine falling deeply asleep in June of 2007 (right before the release of the iPhone) and waking up a decade later to witness the strange societal transformation caused by phones. The new phone-based childhood likely alters biological, psychological, and cultural development. Human beings evolved to have long childhoods for the purpose of learning. Free play, attunement, and socialization foster the necessary learning to become a capable adult. In 1959, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child named play as a basic human right. Excessive screen time, especially via social media, can expose children to "chronic social comparison...unachievable beauty standards...and enormous amount of time taken away from everything else in life." Social media also excels at pushing conformity.
Developmentally, humans have sensitive periods in which it is easy to learn something or acquire a skill. One example is language learning, and another may be cultural learning. Gen Z was the first to go through puberty and the sensitive period for cultural learning with the existence of smartphones.
Chapter 3—Discover Mode and the Need for Risky Play
According to Haidt, many Western nations have restricted children's freedom in the real world while allowing them free rein online. One specific concern motivating real-world caution is about child sexual predators, but Haidt points out that the majority now operate online. Unsupervised outdoor play teaches valuable life skills such as how to handle physical, psychological, and social risks. Haidt phrases the evolutionary modes in terms of two behavioral systems. The first is behavioral activation system (BAS), which Haidt calls "discover mode." This serves humans during periods of safety and abundance. The second is behavioral inhibition system (BIS), which is referred to in the book as "defend mode." On an evolutionary scale, this applies to periods of scarcity, danger, drought, and starvation. The ability to toggle appropriately between both systems contributed to human survival, but being chronically stuck on the defensive inhibits growth. Haidt uses the essayist and statistician Nassim Taleb's term "antifragility" to describe things that require stressors, shocks, volatility, and disorder to become strong. Children are naturally primed to seek out thrilling experiences. As their competence increases, they become more intrigued by things that once frightened them.
Researchers who study childhood play conclude that some amount of risk is essential to developing competence and overcoming anxieties. "Emotional safety" is a relatively new concept that refers to the demand to be free from negative emotions.
Chapter 4—Puberty and the Blocked Transition to Adulthood
Cultural experience changes the developing brain by way of repetition and rewarding. Safetyism—an excessive concern for safety, including "emotional safety"—prevents children from becoming flexible and socially skilled adults. Haidt argues that children need short-term stressors such as ordinary playground conflict. However, smartphones "reduce interest in all non-screen-based forms of experience." These experience blockers should be removed on the pathway to adulthood so that children can experience necessary challenges and milestones.
Haidt describes various rites of passage that accompany the transition from childhood to adulthood. The disappearance of adolescent rites of passage across modern industrial societies harms children and society as a whole. Haidt includes several age-based milestones that can gradually provide new freedoms, responsibilities, and increases in allowance. Starting at age six, children could be assigned a small list of chores rewarded by a weekly allowance. At eight years of age, children should be able to play, spend time with friends without adult supervision, and run local errands. Haidt stipulates that while eight-year-olds should not have smartphones, they are old enough to be given a simple phone or watch that would allow them to call or text a small number of people. Upon turning ten, preteens should have the freedom to roam more widely (perhaps accompanied by a flip phone or basic phone in case of emergencies). At 12, adolescents would benefit from spending time with adult mentors and role models apart from their parents. They also should be encouraged to earn cash by working locally, for instance raking leaves or babysitting for neighbors. When teens begin high school at around 14, they could work for pay or join athletic teams. This is also the minimum age at which teens should receive their first smartphone, though Haidt maintains that 16 should be the beginning of internet adulthood. Haidt agrees with the current legal milestones associated with turning 18 and 21. These include voting at age 18 and buying alcohol at age 21.
Analysis
Haidt begins Part 2 with another thought experiment, one that prompts readers to imagine a time warp that transports them from 2007 to 2017. The emergence of the iPhone in 2007 radically transformed society in terms of how people communicate, access information, consume media, and conduct business. Haidt homes in on how public behaviors and spaces changed. Decontextualizing phone use underscores how peculiar its associated behaviors really are. For instance, if someone were to witness rampant phone use in 2017 without having been conscious during the prior decade, they would see people "clutching a small glass and metal rectangle...[assuming] a hunched position and [staring] at it" (Chapter 2). Public places like waiting rooms would be eerily quiet, and people would appear to be talking to themselves while wearing white earplugs. The way Haidt frames it, these behaviors (which have become commonplace) are straight out of a science fiction narrative.
In Chapter 2, Haidt writes about the widely recognized importance of collective rituals. He cites the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), whose 1912 book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life discusses the collective effervescence produced by such rituals. These rituals "were widely said to renew trust and mend frayed social relations." A prominent example is how Archbishop Desmond Tutu used religious and cultural practices in addressing atrocities perpetrated during South Africa's apartheid era. Haidt, however, ties Durkheim's discussion of rituals to the way that children need embodied and in-person play. No matter the context, collective effervescence serves to strengthen bonds between people.
At the beginning of Chapter 3, Haidt states that risks to children in the real world (such as from crime, violence, and drunk drivers) have sharply decreased since the 1990s. While this may be true as an overall trend, safety outdoors is not a uniform constant in every place. Factors like geography, culture, income, pollution, and lived experience influence the reality and perception of safety. Letting children roam unsupervised in a suburban versus rural versus inner city area all have different implications. Community cohesion also plays a role: if parents do not know and trust their neighbors, they are far less likely to allow their children to have a free-range childhood.
Haidt discusses the importance of playgrounds in Chapter 3. The concept of playgrounds emerged in 1885 in Germany as "sand gardens," the first designated public play spaces for children. Figures such as Friedrich Froebel (an educator who started the first kindergarten) pushed the notion that "'self-activity' and play were essential factors in child education" (Britannica). The first American sand garden debuted in Boston in 1886, and the first public playground (complete with equipment) was the Children's Playground at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco the following year in 1887. Following the Industrial Revolution, growing cities needed to integrate natural elements and diverse play experiences for children into the built environment.
In Chapter 4, Haidt explains that adolescents' digital media use vastly increased during the COVID-19 lockdowns. This had some detrimental effects on mental health, though it depended on the quality and quantity of time spent online. For example, a systematic review and meta-analysis conducted in 2022 suggested that social media could mitigate loneliness and relieve stress during the pandemic, but only when the context was a one-to-one or one-to-few reciprocal interactions rather than "a one-to-all peripheral disclosure on social media" (Marciano, et al.). This relates to Haidt's assertion that humans require real-world relationships and social interactions. He further claims that these relationships and interactions must be embodied, synchronous, involve primarily one-to-one or one-to-several communication, and take place within communities with a high bar for entry and exit.
