The Dangers of a Phone-Based Childhood

blog57 phone-based childhood

Like many parents, you may be trying to move your child away from smartphone use to avoid a damaging phone-based childhood. But it’s not easy. 

On the one hand, we cannot turn the clock back, but on the other, there are things you can do. 

The problem with smartphones is their addictive algorithms, your child’s fear of missing out, scrolling feeds, access to social media, endless videos, and pornographic websites.

It all changed after the iPhone appeared in 2007. Before then, we had bricks! But gradually everyone had smartphones and between 2010-2015 the trouble started.

So, let’s run a fantasy and see how someone waking up in 2017 from a 10-year sleep might view things:

Everything feels off. People are everywhere but there’s silence, everyone hypnotised by a screen. It’s unnerving. When people do speak, it’s not to me. They appear to be speaking to themselves, with white plugs in their ears. Even babies are not crying. I feel a growing sense of isolation. Everyone’s trapped in their own bubble, disconnected from reality. I feel like an outsider. It’s unsettling, eerie, and profoundly lonely.

Indeed!

We’ll first review the dangers and then look at what can be done to minimise them – granted we can’t travel backwards in time. 

After all, my experience as a child therapist has proved again and again that nearly every situation can be improved given time, thought and a pinch of inspiration.

What are the dangers of a phone-based childhood?

1 You are always on, always connected, even if not online.

When the internet first became available, we got there via a modem from a computer. You had to deliberately go set it up, put up with slow connections and talk via news boards.

With a smartphone, you’re always involved, via pings and alerts, and messaging (usually several people in a group), and social media feeds.

There’s no let-up. Even at school. I know from helping anxious children that their thoughts while at school are about what they’re missing, who’s saying what, or being unable to access the latest lyrics.

2 Relationships are formed “elsewhere” than in the real world.

From two to seven hours a day spent in the virtual world?? Do we adults do that? Do our relationships suffer?

The answer is irrelevant – because we’re adults. Our brains are already developed. We know how to relate in real life even if we choose to text instead.

Our children’s brains are not fully developed. So their brains are living a virtual existence even as new neural connections are made. 

It feels “not right” put like that, doesn’t it? And no one has yet done any concrete research to examine the results of 12-18 year olds growing up in this kind of phone-based childhood.

3 A phone-based childhood destroys a girl’s confidence.

I wouldn’t usually spearate out girls’ experiences from boys, but research proves that the most anxiety for girls is caused by social media, impossible comparisons and influencer marketing.

Anxiety is always future-focused. It shows up in girls as:

  • “I won’t look as pretty if I post my real image.”
  • “How can I ever look like that/have those items?”
  • “No one will want me as a friend if I don’t get enough likes.”

The danger is that these girls lose sight of the fact that it’s all filters and pretence. It’s not real. But with so little real social life and outdoor play they have nothing to compare their phone-based childhood to. So they’re anxious and feeling unconfident all day.

4 A phone-based childhood gives boys immediate access to gaming and pornography.

Likewise, research has shown that boys are more anxious when their phone-based childhood exposes them to endless gaming, online competitions and instant access pornography.

It just is. Their anxiety levels are very slightly lower than that of girls but the causes are different. And the dangers are as great. 

Their forward thinking goes like this:

  • “No one will like me if I don’t play the latest video game or look at this site.”
  • “How can I measure up to these men sexually?”

OK – I know that progress comes on insidiously and you can’t always research first. But we need to consider NOW how to off-set the dangers our children are in from their phone-based childhood.

When did a phone-based childhood begin to cause anxiety?

According to Jonathan Haidt in his book The Anxious Generation, where he presents the research and historical data for the various things we’ve been talking about, this "Great Rewiring of Childhood" happened from 2010 to 2015. What occurred exactly in those years was the upsurge of smartphone usage, as mentioned. You can’t ignore that fact.

Things that changed around then included:

  • social patterns of relationships
  • who a child’s role models were
  • the amount of physical activity children undertook
  • heightening of emotional distress
  • sleep patterns due to phones in bedrooms

From this, you can easily imagine, as Haidt says, that “the daily life, consciousness and social relationships of 13 year olds with iPhones in 2013 (born in 2000) were profoundly different from those of 13 year olds with flip phones in 2007 (born in 1994)”.

That being said, I believe parents are well placed, and best placed, to relieve a child of over-anxiety and smartphone damage. So let’s look at some basic ways to tackle the problem – even if we can’t stop technological progress, and probably wouldn't want to.

Re-introducing a play-based childhood to off-set a phone-based childhood

Much of necessary change is going to rely on you as parents doing, being, organising, and joining in. It can’t be avoided. 

You could sum it up as being the adult in the situation. This has benefits, of course. Children do fight boundaries but love the feeling of relief and security they bring.

So here are 5 places to start. Maybe you’ll introduce some, or simply one, or bring them on in turn. Your call. It’s your child – but their future is in your hands, too!

1. Remove phones from your child’s life two hours before bed and for longer periods at weekends.

If it helps, gang up with their friend’s parents. Agree you’re ensuring readiness for bed and healthy sleep for their age so they can be resilient, learn, socialise and respond well the following day. And at weekends, offer play-based activities, no phones.

2 Send or take them out for one hour of freedom (no phones) every day between school and bed. 

Let them be bored. Or have a friend round (same rules, no phone!). But be outside, somewhere safe like your garden or a park, and preferably involving running and playing with a ball or chasing. It doesn’t matter.

3 Have explicit discussions about social media – and limit it. If a phone is needed, give younger children a brick not a smartphone.

For older children, instal parental controls on smartphones and delete social apps.

Your conversations will involve the life of influencers, filters, false impressions, and the financial backing they have; and how “likes” is something SM companies put there to ensure you stay around. Ditto scrolling. Ditto more of whatever you dither over or click on.

In other words, limit SM exposure while educating your child about it – because you will have to gradually release the reins as they get older.

4 Teach them about anxiety and how to manage it, starting with the basics (as in my last post) and including its relationship to the false world of social media.

You child needs to know you believe they are capable of more than being robotic underlings in the online world! But that managing their anxiety will always be necessary.

5 Expose them to real relationships in whatever way you can. Get your friends involved, keep up the meetings as families, friendship groups, outings, shopping trips, whatever – with no smartphone use at that time. 

Teach then how to deal with real people of all ages wherever they meet them. And they will meet them if you make a point of not giving in to having their phone on all the time, or even with them.

Avoiding a phone-based childhood as much as possible

In the light of the dangers of a phone-based childhood, guard your child with your life. Isn’t that what parents do? 

When I’ve talked with parents about a child’s therapy, it has sometimes felt that they were willing to protect them from strangers and dangers in the real world but gave no thought to letting them loose in a technology universe they haven’t even investigated.

Obviously we’re all more savvy about it now, but the anxiety epidemic among children and teens is forcing us to look at the dangers of a phone-based childhood and realise where the anxiety epidemic is stemming from.

There's simply no evidence of any other global concern causing the deterioration in mental health that smartphone use has. If you doubt it, download the free sample of Haidt’s book on Kindle and you’ll find the rationale there.

“Parents against all-age smartphone use” should be the rallying call rather than expecting governments to hold tech companies responsible. Give it a go?

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