Despite some encouraging momentum in the battle to reclaim childhood from screens, adults are still failing to convince kids to hop on the low-tech bandwagon. As a teacher, here’s my take on the situation (and from talking to my colleagues, they share similar concerns). We know that too much screen time and social media are crippling for young people, and we’re trying to do something about it. Seniors are telling juniors that they need protection from bad screens, and young people aren’t buying it. They think we’re going crazy, overreacting, being dramatic. They see us using all the tools of exorcism. In short, we couldn’t figure out how to reach them.
To their credit, young people are actually paying attention to the news. According to a 2025 Pew Research Center Study48% of teens say social media harms people their age, up from 32% in 2022. Still, parents are significantly more concerned, with 55% of teens extremely or very concerned about their mental health compared to 35% of teens. According to the survey, 74% of teens say social media makes them feel more connected to their friends, and only 14% think social media affects them personally negatively. Meanwhile, parents cited social media as the top factor when asked about what most negatively affects teens (44% say social media has the most negative impact).
Adults and children are not on the same page about a major health concern. At this point, we are faced with two possibilities.
- Big Tech and their products have become very powerful. We are too late. There is no going back, and we will continue to be more dependent on devices and less able to work on our own. Screen wins.
- We have yet to outgrow Big Tech and their products. We know we have a social pain, and we just need to put our heads together and find a solution. The ultimate comeback story.
…
Ever the optimist, I’m going with option two, and an analogy of the war against Big Tobacco gives me hope. It wasn’t so many moons ago that everyone knew cigarettes were bad for you, and they smoked them anyway. Young people were motivated to rebel against authority, but not against the tobacco companies. Instead, they told them to stop smoking who rebelled against well-meaning adults. Finally, Flipping the Satya® campaign script And convince young people that companies are exploiting them (and killing them), and that same rebellious spirit is directed toward manipulative corporations. checkmate
Aside: the tobacco industry shakes its stubborn fist. Big Tech will be no different. ok As I like to tell my own kids, that’s exactly what happens.
Moral of the story: We’re still at the point where kids are rebelling against parents and teachers (unknown authority figures) telling them to step away from screens. They’re not worried about the long-term health effects we’re screaming about. They don’t bother with Big Tech villains.
To me, they mostly seem frustrated that we’re treating them like incompetent idiots instead of competent decision makers. And until we offer them some agency on this issue, which seems fair enough considering we don’t plan to throw away our own phones for good, we shouldn’t expect much success, if any.
Aside from flipping the script on big tech companies, I think there are a few key messages for parents, educators and youth advocates to rally behind.
Collective relevance
Instead of scolding children for their dependence, adults should convince young people that developing agency is relevant to their future success. It will probably take a concerted effort from people far more successful and influential than me. Unfortunately, many cultural icons children see as encouraging hyperconnectivity. We need people with social capital in business and athletics, not just academia, to advocate for moderate screen time and social media use. Until that happens widely, parents and teachers have to do their best.
Jonathan Haidt has already made the case for a collective approach Anxious generation (And we have seen a promising response) Without a collective effort we will fail. If we only offer case-sensitive solutions to deal with heavy users, we’ll die by the thousands.
Community participation should be preceded by a clear understanding between schools, families and students. Families should not be surprised by their child’s access to technology and the Internet after joining a community I think this should be true for all youth organizations — sports, camps, etc.
A common message for developing agencies about the relevance of moderate screen time should be:
Less reliance on screens and media leads to greater personal agency and the possibility of achieving one’s goals.
Adults need to frame this message positively, not with threats or scare tactics. This might sound like a coaching staff forbidding their players to pull out their phones during practice (collective effort) while emphasizing the need for optimal focus to improve performance (relevance). A negative approach would be having a vague phone policy and then yelling at a player who checks Instagram between drills: “And you wonder why you’re on the bench?”
This all sounds easy peasy as I write it. The truth is that achieving collective relevance will be difficult. Convincing kids that putting their devices away is relevant to their well-being and will suck success.
No pain, no gain
Any serious attempt to limit screen time will bring challenges, and adults will have to accept them. Kids will be bored. They will work. They will fall for real life mischief instead of online mischief. When you remove the pacifier, they will scream, and parents and educators will bear the consequences of their screaming. That said, just as you shouldn’t treat a crying baby with anger and judgment, we need to approach babies with compassion and empathy.
This, I found, is where the rubber doesn’t meet the road. We love the idea of unplugging our kids until we have to entertain them all day and keep them out of trouble. Cooking dinner while watching your kids is easy the charm Rather than cooking dinner for the fifth time while they’re yelling at you and playing another round of house destruction. But when you say no to see the charm For the sixth time, there will be blood.
And so we build our cell walls.
There is really no way around this one. Being dependent on technology is like sitting comfortably in the eye of a hurricane. Leaving the shelter of the digital bubble risks extreme discomfort – exclusion from the world. Between freedom and imprisonment there is a violent storm to endure. What allows us to leap to freedom, to weather the storm, is agency.
Agency, the vehicle of freedom, the best incentive is to lose our attachment to our devices. We can’t have real agency when we’re on our phones and tablets and laptops Steal our focusWhen they tap into our wiring and affect our thinking, that affects our feelings and actions, that brief experience we call life.
Here we are really up against it. Young people (and, let’s face it, people of all ages) enjoy the experience of building their devices. The trick then is not to lecture children about the relevance of agency. The trick is to create the conditions for agency to feel its relevance.
Insight through experience
As a child, I had the privilege of going to summer camp. There, I gained the insight that I enjoyed life more without screens. I don’t have classes with people lecturing me about digital citizenship. What is digital? No thanks. Instead, I went down to the lake without a screen and had the time of my life. I had proof, real life experience, that hanging out in the woods with my friends, unplugged, was much more fun than any alternative.
You can’t force a kid to practice digital wellness (take it from someone who tried to teach it), or say whatever you want. Children do whatever they want. Without an enjoyable option for their screens, they will choose screens every time. Adults are the same. People working with children must understand this. You can tell me to cut off my right hand until you’re blue in the face. I won’t do it. I am convinced that life with my right hand is more enjoyable than life without it.
As adults, we are responsible for creating the conditions for young people to gain insight, through direct experience, that they are better off spending less time plugged into their devices and more time exercising agency.
Summer camps do pretty well with this — if they don’t allow campers to bring their personal electronics. Schools are trying, and parents can do their best, but I doubt others third place — Physical locations outside the home (first place) or workplace/school (second place) that facilitate social interaction, community building and social support — will have greater impact. I would advise parents to spot the good ones and get their kids involved early.
path to purpose
It won’t be social media bans or digital citizenship courses or even phone-free schools that will reverse the “great recycling” of youth. It will be the collective understanding that provides a better experience isolated from the developing agency and screen that is objectively relevant. We all have a purpose that motivates us. You can’t tell someone what their intentions are. It was discovered. Adults working with young people is all we can do push And encourage that discovery as efficiently as possible.
To conclude, I will resurrect four Paraphrased tips From David Yeager 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People (2024):
- Ask, don’t tell. Respect young people by acting like adults. Adults are asked; Children are called
- Find ways to respect the young person’s dignity – for example, pointing out their skills and abilities – rather than asserting your own authority. Avoid the I-know-better-than-you attitude.
- Examine any negative experiences the youth may have had. Treat their feelings as real and valid. Then find the way forward.
- Estimation company. Acknowledge that the young person can make up their own mind, and then make it clear that you’re rooting for them to make a good choice. Also, explain how their actions have wider consequences in the world.
When adults use a “mentor mindset” (high expectations, high support) rather than a “promoter mindset” (high expectations, low support) (Yeager, 2024), they are more likely to help children find a genuine path to purpose.
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This post was Previously published at medium.com.
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