The average child now plays outside for only 4–7 minutes per day. Even inmates in top security prison get more outdoor time than this.
The latest on our Substack, After Babel:
www.afterbabel.com/p/30-facts-a...
Parents who've lost children to social media harms (sextortion, drugs sold on IG/Snap, eating disorders) are joining arms with parents who've lost children to AI chat bots. The saddest Venn diagram of compounding harms:
"A relationship rarely dies from one catastrophic betrayal, and most of the couples I see aren’t destroyed by a single event. They erode through tiny departures that are too frequent to ignore, in which one partner’s attention leaves the room while their body is still there."
Latest on our Substack:
Still more evidence that #edtech harmed American education: Across states, the year that the state imposed mandates requiring computers/tablets is the year that test scores stopped rising and in most cases started falling.
By Jared Cooney Hovarth:
It's a big day for us at the Anxious Generation movement — we launched the Childhood Index, a ranking of US states on how well their technology laws and policies support healthy, flourishing childhoods, online and offline.
Where does your state rank?
Thank you @axios.com for the exclusive story!
Major new report on mental health (Sapien Labs). Data from 85 countries:
1) In ALL countries examined, young people have worse mental health than older generations.
2) A younger age of first smartphone ownership is associated with increased suicidal thoughts & other problems in adulthood.
"For those of us who study how change happens, this is a master class. An idea that seemed politically impossible in early 2024 has become politically inevitable by early 2026."
Thank you @fastcompany.com
“No evidence of harm” is a familiar argument, but it’s a false one — both in the context of social media and in educational technology. The latest on my Substack, After Babel, by Jared Cooney Hovarth www.afterbabel.com/p/edtech-bor...
Freya India is one of the best writers I know, and she's only 26 (Gen Z). I wrote about her in "The Anxious Generation." She now has a book of her own, out in the UK today and in the US in May. I would tag her, but like many Gen Z'ers now, she doesn't have social media.
We live in a world where wealthy industries can buy influence and continue to harm kids. But that is changing. Thanks for having Catherine Price and me, @thedailyshow.com!
"The Amazing Generation" is on sale wherever books are sold, aimed at 9-12yo's.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7SC...
Swiping for new content is one of many addictive gestures social media borrowed from gambling.
A wide-ranging conversation with Manoush Zomorodi for TED Radio Hour, a co-production with NPR (40 min).
www.npr.org/programs/ted...
Bravo to the NPTA for deciding not to pursue further funding from Meta.
Big tech knows their products are harming children, and they have spent vast sums of money confusing the public and trying to fund organizations that are supposed to defend children.
Yes, social media apps are intentionally designed to addict — Roger McNamee, early advisor to Zuckerberg and early investor in Facebook confirms: www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4yp...
When Zuckerberg says there is no causation, only correlation, between social media and mental health harms to kids, that is patently false.
Thanks for having me @cbsnews.com (7-min video)
www.cbsnews.com/video/anxiou...
In 2024, Zuckerberg said to Congress, “We are on the side of parents everywhere working hard to raise their kids.”
That wasn't, and isn't, true.
Tomorrow we hear from Zuckerberg in the LA social media trial. He has a lot to account for.
But he knows that gambling is a DSM addiction & that his product was designed on same behaviorist principles. He and his researchers have used the word "addiction" in many internal memos and studies.
My team has organized the evidence on 31 studies carried out by Meta:
metasinternalresearch.org
At the trial last week in Los Angeles, Adam Mosseri claimed that Instagram is not addictive. He said a kid compulsively watching 16 hours of Reels a day is no different than when he watches too much Netflix and stays up a bit too late.
Since kids got social media, family time has become a fight over screen time. Had a great conversation with @katiecouric.bsky.social on our Substacks, thanks Katie!
Social media does not give teens real community; it prevents them from spending time with real people.
New randomized controlled trial shows young adults get LESS lonely when they reduce, even though their friends are not reducing. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
"There’s never been a better time to touch the hearts of people, you just have to be human." A wonderful post on my Substack by Freya India, one of the best writers I know, who writes about Gen Z.
www.afterbabel.com/p/you-have-t...
It was an honor to meet Indonesia's Minister Hafid on my recent trip to Europe and hear about how, beginning in March, Indonesia is taking decisive steps to protect children from online harms. It is thrilling to see the world's 4th largest country — with 80 million kids — taking decisive action.
This book from @jonathanhaidt.bsky.social seems like a good place to start for parents that want to talk to their kids about how AI can be addictive just like other apps
blackbondbooks.com/item/uFul1NH...
Maine Governor @janetmillsforme.bsky.social announced in her State of the State address last night her intent to champion a bell-to-bell ban for Maine. Bravo, governor! This would be a fantastic way to allow kids to focus not presence, learning, and each other.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPk...
If you're in NYC on Thursday Feb 5, join @chrislhayes.bsky.social & me at Strand Bookstore!
RSVP here: www.eventbrite.com/e/chris-haye...
A highlight from my London trip: running into a group of survivor parents (whose children have died because of social media) outside No10.
We must make the internet safe for kids by age-gating social media and setting new norms for kids' and teens' device use.
The greatest downside from social media — for adults, but especially for kids and teens — is the attention fragmentation.
The UK is about to adopt an Australia-style minimum age for social media accounts policy — this morning on Good Morning Britain:
@jonathanhaidt.bsky.social is absolutely correct here. It’s a collective action problem that requires collective solutions.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/p...
