Generation Anxiety: smartphones have created a gen Z mental health crisis – but there are ways to fix it

IrishInManchesterUK said:

The best alternative for a smartphone is a set of Rosary Beads

I'm firmly of the beleif that no child should be indoctrinated into any religion and they should be given the chance at school leaving age to perform an informed, rational analysis of the different religions available to see if they chose to follow any.

This would avoid a huge amount of the absurd ideas that different religions bring into impressionable minds.

The majority of religions do not stand up to any sort of rational analysis as they offer no actual proof of the existance of their deity(s) and their mantra of "you have to believe in order to feel the proof" shows how silly that are.

Pegg said:

In fact, the idea that adulthood arrives at 21 has rarely been true historically. It just wouldn't have been feasible. 

School leaving age was 16 when I was at school but it was 14 for my mother.

Young people often had to leave school + go to work to provide money for the family unit.

I’m a lot older than 21 but still not convinced I’ve achieved adulthood yet

In fact, the idea that adulthood arrives at 21 has rarely been true historically. It just wouldn't have been feasible. 

T said:

I have a device with me basically all the time that has instant access to a huge amount of music, all the information I could need on transport and directions (the idea of being on the other side of the city and the trains are a mess and I have no citymapper to help me get home is frankly terrifying), games to distract me if I'm struggling, the alarms and reminders I need to stay organised.

Excellent points and also, as you intimate, the information available for medical (or anything) conditions is superb.

At 14 a friend of mine was institutionalised in our local 'asylum' with anorexia and almost died.

She would have had a lot more resources these days and been less isolated (I realise that there is a converse to this as social media might have exacerbated her condition).

I think that for me that's the major bonus of the internet - information at your fingertips (as long as we can be discerning) ..

Obviously with everything there's a mixture of positive and negative but I think overall smartphones have been way more good than bad for me. 

I have a device with me basically all the time that has instant access to a huge amount of music, all the information I could need on transport and directions (the idea of being on the other side of the city and the trains are a mess and I have no citymapper to help me get home is frankly terrifying), games to distract me if I'm struggling, the alarms and reminders I need to stay organised. God knows what else.

I'm always a bit unsure what to make of when I see these claims, because I was a teenager with no smartphone who would (I guess) be counted as a relative success because I wasn't treated for anxiety at that age. It didn't mean it wasn't happening, it meant I was totally alone. If I'd had more access to the internet, I probably would have figured out earlier that things were wrong and maybe would've been able to get help. But because I suffered in ignorance and silence until I left school and ended up in hospital, that's one fewer 13 year old who would've shown up on the statistics as dealing with anxiety and depression. Victory. 

IrishInManchesterUK said:

a child is a child until they are 21

Nope.

My sister was married with a baby at 16 (in England).

Not related but welcome back Bees!

TheCatWoman said:

I don't find social media very friendly or social, it's another way to feel lonely in a crowd and the bullying is worse than in "real" life as every arm chair warrior feels it's their "right" to comment negatively on the lives of strangers.

Absolutely.

Perfectly expressed.

The best alternative for a smartphone is a set of Rosary Beads 

Debbie I think I may have started that thread. It's quite funny talking to young people about our young lives, I remember a young friends face nearly sliding off the front of his head when I said there was no daytime tv when I was a child.

Lot's of people never had a telephone, it was a mixed blessing, going to the phone box was a apin but it offered some privacy, as phones were generally in the hall or living room and everyone could hear who you were talking too and what about.

I used to like writing letter's and enjoyed the thud of post arriving on the door mat, I use email instead now, I still like written communication as I find it more thoughtful and considered.

I don't find social media very friendly or social, it's another way to feel lonely in a crowd and the bullying is worse than in "real" life as every arm chair warrior feels it's their "right" to comment negatively on the lives of strangers.

Can somebody take his head out of his *** and stop blaming technology? It's not the fault of the mobiles, is the fault of crappy/ non-existent parenting.

When I was a kid, good parents took their children outside or signed them up for activities. Crap parents just locked their children in the house with a TV. No wonder my generation grew up to be a bunch of TV-addicted idiots.

Now, good parents took their children outside or signed them up for activities. Crap parents just leave their children with an Ipad/Iphone as soon as they can hold them..

It's a crappy parents problem. but it is fancier and easier to just blame the evil technology. You cannot tell parents to start actually parenting their sprogs, it will be "invalidating"

Our grandparents generation went to great lengths to stop the internet and mobile phones coming into secondary schools, via boards of management, the local Catholic Priests and the Gardai and rightly so, for very good reason, as they correctly and accurately predicted - they did not want us children having any lessons on computer science for example and parents who allowed their children access to mobile phones or the internet were publicly condemned from the Pulpit and were harshly spoken to by the local police when I was growing up in Rural Ireland in my teens in the 80’s but sadly their efforts failed in the tide of “progress” (insanity) that followed so our grandparents were vindicated in their accurate and correct warnings about where all of this would lead to before their passing 

I would go much, much further than this - because a child is a child until they are 21, the traditional legal age of majority, to which everything should be increased to, no child under the age of 21 should ever be allowed anywhere near mobile phones nor the internet at all for any reasons, no exceptions, as warned by our grandparents generation - family homes in which young children are present must never be online nor have any access to mobile phones at all for any reason, even if other family members “need” such devices for any reason - I have long advocated for a licence system based on provable need in a court of law, in front of a judge and jury in an open court hearing for the internet and mobile phones, especially where children under 21 are involved, as these devices being present in the family home are never in the children’s best interests - we have got to go back to the beauty of tradition and traditional family life - we have got to be “cruel to be kind” in this instance in order to protect children, as even the WiFi and mobile phone signals affects children’s developing brains aside from the content on such devices and I’ve had to counsel parents over the years about the danger that they are putting their children in 

It's the rabbit holes I like! This is one good thing about the internet. We can constantly learn new things because of what we have access to.

I haven't read the article but lot of anxiety comes from uncertainty and I think phones and social media could create an artificial fight or flight to be activated (or constantly on).

Pegg said:

There's a 'no phones except at breaktime' rule, but it's ignored by them, particularly, and they're routinely asked to put their phones away. 

This is my experience with adults too.

My observations as a person in school 5 days a week*

Around a fifth of the kids are sufficiently compelled by their phones that they can't resist them. There's a 'no phones except at breaktime' rule, but it's ignored by them, particularly, and they're routinely asked to put their phones away. 

A significant group in each class want to spend their time chatting, social peer interaction is at least as important to them as their phone.

The rest of them pretty much get on with it. 

From experience, these behaviours are difficult to change by the timethey get to secondaryschool, and in general, they'll carry them all the way to their GCSEs.

There are probably multiple factors influencing behaviour, of which access to phones is just one. 

There's talk nationally of banning phones in school, as if that would be a simple fix - I'm not sure it would. 

*But not for the next 2 weeks!

From the article:

How do we escape from these traps? Collective action problems require collective responses: parents can support one another by sticking together. There are four main types of collective response, and each can help us to bring about major change:

1. No smartphones before year 10
Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones with limited apps and no internet browser before the age of 14.

2. No social media before 16
Let children get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to an avalanche of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers.

3. Phone-free schools
Schools must insist that students store their phones, smartwatches, and any other devices in phone lockers during the school day, as per the new non-statutory guidance issued by the UK government. That is the only way to free up their attention for one another and for their teachers.

4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence
That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.

Re No. 4 - I've been saddened to see how different the lives of children are now to when I was young, although my life was far from perfect.

I did however have a lot of independence, so much that perhaps it was neglect.

I went out to play from a young age and stayed out all day (I had one friend when I was under 12 and a lot of time was spent at his house in his garden) but when I was 12 we moved to a council estate and I used to just stay out all day with whoever I knew (a gang I seem to remember) and we would play on old bomb sites and building sites.

It's not ideal but it is incredibly different.

At school we played actual games like hopscotch, skipping and ball games.

A lot of rhymes were sung - I am trying to find a video of these - if I do I will post it here.

I thinking the 'self-governing' part of this is very true.

I grew up to be a pretty independent thinker.

Isa said:

My Gran frequently says about how things like this weren't around when she was little and I find it hard to picture that world. Smart phones are such a big thing it's hard to believe they weren't always here

I can understand how you feel that way (+ thanks for your contribution).

Phones are just mini computers and their most important component is the internet (for most).

The internet was originally referred to as the 'information superhighway'.

The information that we can glean from it now would have been from many different sources when I was young including books (often a long walk to a library for me), newspapers, (all printed matter), radio, television and other people.

Seeking out these sources of information took up vastly more time than the movement of a couple of fingers.