Screen vs Park time

Happy Friday,

How was your week? Mine was busy. Yesterday was the welcome back school barbecue, and it was so fun to see all the kids running around having fun.

Do you remember playing outside with your friends? I do, with a big smile on my face and a cold sweat from dodging a few scares. 

This week, I wanted to share a book that made me rethink a few things for my girls. One of them is to have them play outside more.

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at NYU who aims to help people understand each other better. His recent study on the impact of social media on kids is disturbing, to say the least.

Gen Z (born after 1995) have a higher rate of psychological disorder than any other age group not having their frontal lobes fully developed: 

• Self-reporting of anxiety (+134%) and depression (+100%) have significantly increased since 2010.

• Girls are hit 145% more than boys in these findings.

• Completed suicide increased by 67% for girls in 2013 in one year (IG started in 2012, btw).  

Sadly, these numbers are observable pre-covid and worldwide, Canada included. 

You can read more about it in his book, his article in The Atlantic, Get Phones Out of Schools Now, or by discussing his findings with Scott Galloway, Joe Rogan (if you can bear him), or on the Huberman Lab.

Luckily, actionable recommendations were also made from this study, which I will follow meticulously.

• No smartphone before high school

• No social media before 16

• Phone free schools

• Far more free play and independence

Raising my 3 girls is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I hope protecting their self-confidence is my biggest gift to them. So, even if receiving a phone after finishing elementary school will remain a big milestone at my house, it will come without certain apps and definitely with more park time instead of screen time.

See you next week