Prince Harry and Meghan founded and launched the Parents’ Network this year, to provide resources and support for parents who have lost children to social media bullying, online scams and the online world. This has been Prince Harry’s very consistent concern for more than a decade – how younger generations are dealing with addictive social media and they are unprepared for online threats. Harry once again highlighted all of these concerns in a new filmed conversation with psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation. Some quotes from their conversation:
On smartphones: “In many cases, the smartphone is stealing young people’s childhood,” Harry said. “Young people trade in their flip phones for smartphones,” Haidt said about that moment of generational shifting, “and now with a front-facing camera, high-speed internet, a million apps that are competing with each other to hook kids’ attention. So, the ‘anxious generation’ is helping us understand the incredible destructive force of this transformation of childhood … and what we can do now to stop that from happening and to help those who already have been through it.”
Parents vs. social media companies: One of Haidt’s biggest worries about the current state of parenting and social media is that, “We are overprotecting our children in the real world and under-protecting them online,” he said. “And both of those moves are mistakes. They’re bad for development.” It’s why he advocates for no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and more unsupervised play and childhood independence. It’s also why, Harry said, “It’s very easy for social media companies to point the finger at parents and say, ‘Well, you know, this is down to you. This is down to your parenting.’”
Kids receive smartphones for safety: Through his Insight Sessions, said Harry, he’s spoken with parents who say they give their kids phones at a younger age to keep them safe. “It’s a double edged sword,” he said. “They want them to have their phone at school in case of emergency, but once, like any kid, you have your phone, even if you’re told you’re not allowed to download that app, kids have a way of working around it.”
The ‘myth’ of social media as lifeline: “Social media, we know, to a large extent, is giving an outlet, an added resource, to kids that perhaps don’t feel comfortable coming to us to talk about their issues and their troubles and their worries,” he said. “Kids online will be feeling more connected with complete strangers on social media. So how do you, if you’re a parent, know that your kid is getting good out of social media?” Haidt said it is “one of Meta’s favorite talking points” that “social media is a lifeline for LGBTQ kids, for kids from marginalized communities. And that’s just not true.”
It’s an interesting conversation, especially with Harry and Haidt grappling with real-world solutions for how to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle. It’s difficult to tell “the Anxious Gen,” Gen Z, that they can’t have smartphones anymore and that they really should disconnect from the internet and pick up a book or go for a walk or play with their friends in real life. How does that even work in practice? At one point, Haidt compared Gen Z to Millennials, with Millennials coming out favorably because they only had flip phones. Like… I’m online, Millennials are just as anxious and depressed as Gen Z. I don’t know. I don’t have the answer. Here’s the video, I’ve listened to almost all of this and the conversation is really interesting.
Photos courtesy of CBS, YouTube.