If you are raising a child today the most critical advice is keep them away from screens, especially smartphones, and keep them off social media. People are on their phones as much as 4 or 5 hours a day. That statistic is depressing, particularly because a large body of research shows the negative effects of so much screen time. A fascinating study from Stanford University involved an experiment to block participants’ access to the internet via their smartphones for two weeks and analyzed the effect on their mental health and cognitive performance. Not at all surprisingly, based on prior research and common sense, those who complied with the internet block showed a sharp drop in screen time and an improvement in mental health and cognitive functioning. The improvements were quite large, and this in only two weeks. But in a demonstration of just how addictive smartphones are, more than half of all participants couldn’t comply with the blocking, either at all or to the extent required. (Phone Study)
I have to admit one of my biggest worries is what I’m going to do when some hacker takes down the internet.