Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety, by Peter Gray, Penguin Random House, 352 pages, $32
There's one chart that anyone who thinks they know all about smartphones, social media, and kids should see.
asserted
they → restore → smartphones
Part of its data—showing U.S. teen suicide rates rising steeply between roughly 2010 and 2020—has been widely shared by people out to prove that modern "screen time" has been disastrous for American youth.
asserted
time → show → youth
But if we pan out a little further, a different picture emerges.
asserted
picture → pan → ?
In this chart, we can see that the teen suicide rate rose steadily from 1950 until around 1990—an era during which nary a teen was checking Facebook, posting to Snapchat, or texting with friends.
asserted
teen → see → friends
Then, throughout the '90s and early aughts, the rate of teen suicide dropped.
asserted
rate → drop → suicide
Its subsequent rise in the 2010s represents not some unprecedented climb but a return to levels seen in the 1970s and 1980s.
asserted
rise → represent → 1970s
(It has also, in recent years, begun once again to fall.
asserted
It → begin → years
Suicide isn't the only index of teen suffering where we see such a pattern.
asserted
we → see → pattern
Signs of depression and anxiety also crept up copiously in the second half of the 1900s.
asserted
Signs → creep → 1900s
Then, for more than a decade, many measures of teen distress decreased.
asserted
measures → decrease → distress
The pattern doesn't map easily onto modern technology.
asserted
pattern → map → technology
I encountered that chart in Restoring Childhood by the Boston College evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray, who is out to challenge the conventional wisdom around kids and digital connectivity.
asserted
who → encounter → kids
His book also attempts to explain what actually went wrong, then right, then wrong again for American youth.
asserted
what → attempt → youth
Gray has studied child development for decades, with particular emphasis on the importance of play.
asserted
Gray → study → play
(His Substack is called Play Makes Us Human.)
asserted
Us → call → ?
He has penned multiple books critical of conventional American schooling, and he co-founded Let Grow, a group championing childhood independence and challenging public policies that discourage it.
asserted
that → pen → it
Gray started Let Grow with the New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt and Reason columnist Lenore Skenazy.
asserted
Gray → start → psychologist
Haidt has since become the foremost champion of the idea that smartphones and social media have made young people miserable and must be reined in.
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people → become → idea
His 2024 bestseller The Anxious Generation asserts that modern technology has caused "an epidemic of mental illness" in our youth.
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technology → assert → youth
Gray vehemently disagrees.
asserted
Gray → disagree → ?
"I have looked broadly and deeply into the voluminous research on [technology and teen well-being] and have found no convincing evidence that social media or other uses of digital technology are responsible for much if any of the steep rise in teen suffering," he writes in Restoring Childhood.
asserted
he → look → Childhood
But he shares Haidt's disdain for helicopter parenting.
asserted
he → share → parenting
"By treating children as fragile we, as a society, have made them fragile," writes Gray.
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Gray → treat → society
"By depriving them of free play and other self-directed adventures, we are denying them the activities that bring kids the greatest joy, that make life for them worthwhile.
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life → deprive → them
So the first major component of Gray's theory goes something like this: Healthy childhood development requires play, exploration, autonomy, and opportunities to take on responsibilities, but social changes in the latter half of the 20th century diminished the conditions required for such development.
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changes → go → development
But then there's that blip—that 1990 to mid-2000s period when measures of young people's mental health began to improve after years of decline.
asserted
measures → be → decline
This wasn't a time of declining safetyism.
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This → decline → safetyism
How does he account for this?
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he → account → this
This time the source is modern technology, he suggests.
uncertain
he → suggest → ?
Here's where Gray really starts diverging from today's titans of tech panic.
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Gray → start → panic
He posits that computers, video games, and internet access produced gains in well-being among the young people of the 1990s and '00s "by providing a new route to autonomy, connections with peers, and [a] sense of competence."
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computers → posit → competence
Computers in general provided an arena for developing a mastery of new skills and with them new confidence.
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Computers → provide → them
Multiplayer video games provided new avenues for socialization.
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games → provide → socialization
Chatrooms and then instant messaging allowed teens to hang out away from parents' watchful eyes.
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teens → allow → eyes
The wider web offered access to niche communities, creative pursuits, and emotional support.
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web → offer → communities
While online play and communication are not "fully adequate replacements" for in-person play and outdoor activity, they're "certainly better than no play or communication with peers," Gray suggests.
uncertain
Gray → suggest → peers
"This new technology created new freedoms for kids, which improved, on average, their mental health.
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which → create → health
It partially restored childhood.
asserted
It → restore → childhood
If the web boosted young people's psychological health in its infancy, today's turbocharged tech access could theoretically make things even better.
uncertain
things → boost → infancy
But that's supposing that everything else has remained constant.
asserted
everything → suppose → ?
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
