Day Zero

Outlining 15 Days

0. Intro

My admiration for Jonathan Haidt is 10 out of 10.

What Haidt describes in The Anxious Generation and his newsletter After Babel fits my observations: inside schools; in related ventures with teens; as a Dad of 2 teens.

Yikes!

[A dear friend, an eminent psychologist, is far less approving of Haidt. I’ll explore R’s critique in this series, probably blog #5.]

I want to explore 2 questions.

Question A: How is Haidt’s Agenda going over the past year? Is there progress?

Question B: What is the Individual Parent to do once the cat is out of the bag?

My Outline:

1. Haidt’s Agenda: Schools That Are Phone Free; Increase Adventurous Play at School; Reduce EdTech in Classroom

2. Haidt’s Agenda: Go After Tech Companies: KOSA

3. Haidt’s Agenda: Parents Should Delay Phones to Age 14 and Social Media to 16

4. Haidt’s Agenda: Collective Parent Action

5. Haidt’s Agenda: Research Battle versus Odgers, Ferguson, and Others - convince the scholars

*

Now we’ll turn to the Individual Parent battles.

6. Tyson Punch In The (Parent) Face: Kid Gets Phone

Seems like a common story is:

Big preamble by parent on the dangers of excessive time. Maybe a phone contract, parent and kid. All kinds of agreed upon limits.

Then per the data: 5, 6, 7 hours a day is common. Half of teens = nearly constantly

7. See No Evil

Three obstacles that block parent from even engaging.

8. Conventional Wisdom

The “Tips” and their limits.

9. Hunting True Usage Data

What happens when parents try to measure baseline screentime, to set up a reduction?

Wow it’s freaking hard, despite the “tools. Sean explains why - from his last month working with a dozen teens.

10. “Reduce and Replace”?

Helen Thai promotes “reduce and replace” on After Babel. Excellent.

I’ll look at some RCTs here. Also something Sean and I came across called “Behavioral Activation Therapy.”

11. Cold Turkey “Take The Phone”?

Beware Cortisol! Evidence and stories.

12. Phone Contracts

Let’s read some samples. I’ll propose a variation. Any empirical research here?

13. Who Can Parents Call?

The Phone Interventionists. What do they do? Can we guess their efficacy?

14. Side Door Opportunity

Few kids, if asked, want to reduce their own screentime.

Some kids, when asked, do want help in another area. Can’t sleep. Struggling in school. Isolated or anxious.

Is that the side door? Work on kid’s goal; organically arrive at the smartphone problem; strike surgically.

Sean Case Study 1

15. Sean Case Study 2….