Protecting kids is a see-saw between over-doing it (i.e. helicoptering) or under-doing it (i.e. neglecting). The extremes are easy to identify. Finding the golden mean is difficult, especially when our kids live in two different worlds: the real world and the digital world.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote two very important books about both of these worlds and the respective traps parents often fall into. The first book, The Coddling of the American Mind, demonstrates parents’ tendency to overprotect their kids from the real world. To use a proverb quoted in the book, “They prepare the road for their child, but not their child for the road.” The second book, The Anxious Generation, explores how parents often under-protect their kids in the digital world, leaving their minds to be subtly shaped by its worst offerings. Both of these are traps parents should be informed of and intentional to avoid for their kids’ sake.

I am digging into the second book and Haidt has only solidified my plans to never get my kids a smartphone. Here are seven reasons why.

I Don’t Want My Kids to Be Awkward

Smartphones train kids to be comfortable with screens and uncomfortable with human faces. The more they’re on phones the less they’ll engage with real people in real situations and learn the skills of eye contact, attention to detail and nuance, and conversation. Those are important skills to learn for life’s most important joy – relationships. I don’t want to unnecessarily make it harder for my kids to not act or feel awkward in real life. Going through puberty provides enough difficult in that realm.

I Don’t Want My Kids to Be Lonely

Haidt says, “Since the rise of smartphone use around 2012, loneliness among U.S. teens has increased by 50%, with 1 in 4 high school students reporting frequent feelings of loneliness.” Why? It should be obvious, Haidt says, “The more time teens spend on social media, the less time they spend in face-to-face interaction, which is a recipe for loneliness and disconnection.” If I have the decision to get some quiet time for myself or please my kids at the increased risk of helping them feel lonely, I don’t find it a hard one to make.

I Don’t Want My Kids to Have Depression, Anxiety, or Suicidal Thoughts

Heavy social media use (4+ hours daily, which is on the lower end with the students I teach) among teen girls is associated with a 65% higher likelihood of reporting symptoms of depression and anxiety. The social comparison and pressure from curated online images is disastrous. Even more, it’s deadly. Hospital admissions for self-harm among girls aged 10-14 tripled from 2010 to 2020, correlating with the rise in social media use.

I Want to Increase My Kids Focus and Attention

Smartphones destroy kids’ ability to focus and lower their academic achievement or enthusiasm. Continual smartphone use steals the little attention kids have and leave none for the hard, focused work their education requires, especially in the area of reading. The data about this is so significant it has caused states like Arizona, California, and New York (plus eleven other states) and countries like Hungary, the Netherlands, and Italy to implement school smartphone bans since 2023. Moves like these aren’t easy or popular to make, nor are they usually so bipartisan. Could it be that the data is just that good and smartphones are just that bad for kids’ minds?

I Value the Effect of Real-World Play for My Kids

If my child is playing on a screen, they’re not playing in real life. Physical play – which demands imagination, fair play, hard work, and learning how to win and losing respectfully – is crucial to grow in creativity, emotional resilience, and social skills. Every hour spent online is one hour lost in experiencing these valuable skills.

I Want My Girls to Learn the Value of Delayed Gratification

Smartphones breed addiction to immediate comfort. They make kids uncomfortable with the discomfort involved to develop their bodies, minds, and contentment. Smartphones condition children to seek instant dopamine rushes and foster a preference for quick pleasure over sustained focus. The more they practice scrolling for the quick hit of pleasure the less able they are to hit the pause button to enjoy the long-lasting pleasure that only comes after hard work. They get addicted to comfort and recoil from the hard work needed to grow. My kids won’t have a chance of cultivating a love for truth and virtue born only of focused and sustained work if I allow them to experience the incessant, instant gratification of social media.

I Want My Girls to Feel Bored

I’ve grown to love the phrase, “Daddy, I’m bored,” because I know its the necessary start for them to learn or do something useful and satisfying. Creativity, resilience, and resourcefulness need the soil of boredom to grow. The National Library of Medicine says, “boredom can be a source of creativity and innovation in that when bored, brains are more likely to wander and explore new ideas or perspectives. Boredom can encourage one to seek novel experiences, discover new interests, or challenge oneself to learn and grow.” If I deny my kids the experience of boredom or “save” them from it by putting a phone in their hands, I am choosing to stunt their ability to enjoy or create good and beautiful things.

Parents, You Are Responsible

Your kids are too immature and uninformed to make this decision for themselves. Other parents are responsible for what they do with their kids, not yours. You alone can make the decision and you alone are responsible for the decision you make.

Though there are more reasons to cite, these are enough for me to see giving my children a smartphone isn’t very smart. If you don’t agree, that’s your choice, but consider asking, “What great good does a smartphone offer that is valuable enough to risk even one of these potential problems?”

Maybe one more word for parents. We’d be amiss to think about how smartphones affect our kids without considering how they may be affecting us too. How is your smartphone affecting you? What kind of relationship do you have with your phone and social media? Is it making your relationships, learning, and life better or worse? Is your social media use making you more content, cheerful, and Christ-like or is it shaping you in other ways you may not have noticed?

Feel free to push back or add reasons I haven’t mentioned.