The expert considers age-appropriate devices for children

Published: May 31, 2024

The expert considers age-appropriate devices for children

By Movieguide® staff

Bestselling author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt sat down with TODAY WITH HODA AND JENNA to discuss the role of smartphone use in the incidence of depression in teens. Sets out guidelines for giving children age-appropriate devices.

“So you could say that phones are here to stay. The cars are here to stay, but we don’t let 11-year-olds drive them,” Haidt said. He suggests delaying giving young children smartphones and finding other ways to contact parents when they are away from home.

So what devices are suitable for each age group? Haidt says:

In his latest book, The Anxious Generation, Haidt connects the loss of play-based childhoods with the emergence of telephone-based childhoods. “When kids are rooted in real relationships, social media doesn’t wash them away,” he said.

Haidt believes that children need time to turn off their screens and have much-needed play time.

“We are overprotective in the (real world) and I say calm down, let your kids out! In another, we do not provide enough protection and I say: do not let your children spend nine hours a day on the Internet, talking to strange men. It’s just not a good idea,” he said.

Movieguide has previously reported on how parents can protect their children from the dangers of smartphones:

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” believes that social media and smartphones are causing a mental health crisis among teenagers.

Launches a campaign to protect young people from the dangers of excessive screen time. He said:

The overwhelming feeling I feel in families, both boys and girls, is that they are trapped and powerless in the face of their children’s worst-ever mental health crisis. What should they – what should we – do?

Haidt’s research found that the mental health of young people and teenagers worsened after the invention of the smartphone in 2007, when children discovered social media and moved their lives online. He claims that between 2010 and 2015, teenagers’ lives changed.

“In 2010, almost everyone had a flip phone. They didn’t have an Instagram account because it was only invented this year. They had no high-speed data or high-speed Internet and had to pay to use the Internet. They had to pay for each text message. So a 13- or 14-year-old kid in 2010 wasn’t online all day long,” he said.

“But in the next few years, Instagram will become very popular. The front camera will appear (in iPhones) in 2010. Thanks to this, you can now show more of yourself in your photos. Most people use high speed internet, most people use an unlimited data plan. Video games are becoming much more engaging with multiplayer online games that are thriving on the high-speed Internet.