Let's Talk: Childhood Digital Wellbeing

Let's Talk: Childhood Digital Wellbeing

Events

Expert Perspectives on Digital Wellbeing
Wednesday, March 4 • 6:30 p.m. • Liverpool Public Library Carman Community Room

Engage with a panel of experts as they discuss the effects of screen time and social media on youth mental health and anxiety, warning signs parents and educators should monitor, tools and resources for parents and educators, and working together as a community.

Registration required. Register here.

Student Voices on Technology
Tuesday, April 21 • 6:30 p.m. • Chestnut Hill Middle School

Liverpool High School students will share their perspectives on cell phone use, the challenges of constant connectivity, and what mental health impacts they have observed.

Registration required. Register here.

Featured Book

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness – Jonathan Haidt (2024)

Provided by publisher

From New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health-and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why? In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the"play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by thearrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the "collective action problems" that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood. Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes-communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children-and ourselves-from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

Read-alikes and Also Reads

General Anxiety and Phone Use

The Anatomy of Anxiety – Ellen Vora, MD  (March 2022)

Publishers Weekly review

Anxiety affects more than forty million Americans--a number that continues to climb in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While conventional medicine tends to view anxiety as a "neck-up" problem--that is, one of brain chemistry and psychology--the truth is that the origins of anxiety are rooted in the body.

In The Anatomy of Anxiety, holistic psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Vora offers nothing less than a paradigm shift in our understanding of anxiety and mental health, suggesting that anxiety is not simply a brain disorder but a whole-body condition. In her clinical work, Dr. Vora has found time and again that the symptoms of anxiety can often be traced to imbalances in the body. The emotional and physical discomfort we experience--sleeplessness, brain fog, stomach pain, jitters--is a result of the body's stress response. This physiological state can be triggered by challenging experiences as well as seemingly innocuous factors, such as diet and use of technology.

The good news is that this body-based anxiety, or, as Dr. Vora terms it, "false anxiety," is easily treated. Once the body's needs are addressed, Dr. Vora reframes any remaining symptoms not as a disorder but rather as an urgent plea from within. This "true anxiety" is a signal that something else is out of balance--in our lives, in our relationships, in the world. True anxiety serves as our inner compass, helping us recalibrate when we're feeling lost.

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence – Anna Lembke, MD (August 2021)

Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews

This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We're living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we've all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again – Johann Hari (2022)

Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.

How to Break Up with Your Phone, revised edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan – Catherine Price (2025) (Coauthor of The Amazing Generation with Jonathan Haidt)

No starred reviews, but practical guide written by a journalist

Do you feel addicted to your phone? Do you frequently pick it up "just to check," only to look up forty-five minutes later wondering where the time has gone? Does social media make you anxious? Have you tried to spend less time mindlessly scrolling--and failed? If so, this book is your solution.

In How to Break Up with Your Phone, award-winning health and science journalist and TED speaker Catherine Price presents a hands-on 30-day digital detox guide to breaking up--and then making up--with your phone. The goal: better mental health, improved screen-life balance, and a long-term relationship with technology that feels good.

Now fully revised to reflect advances in the technological landscape, this groundbreaking book features new expert advice and research on the science of addiction, with expanded chapters explaining how social media and algorithms are designed to addict us, impairing our abilities to focus, think deeply, and form new memories; and an updated section on the unique dangers social media poses to children, with brand-new tips on how to protect them.

Also newly expanded is How to Break Up with Your Phone's life-changing, evidence-based 30-day plan that will guide you--and your friends and family--through the process of creating new, healthy relationships with your smartphone, tablet, or other digital devices.

Whether you're seeking refuge from an exhausting news cycle or you're concerned about the negative effects of social media, How to Break Up with Your Phone offers practical solutions. It's guaranteed to help you put down your phone--and come back to life.

Families, Parenting, and Children/Teens 

Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (and Adults are Missing) – Emily Weinstein and Carrie James (August 2022)

Kirkus and Publishers Weekly reviews

What are teens actually doing on their smartphones? Contrary to many adults' assumptions, they are not simply "addicted" to their screens, oblivious to the afterlife of what they post, or missing out on personal connection. They are just trying to navigate a networked world. In Behind Their Screens, Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, Harvard researchers who are experts on teens and technology, explore the complexities that teens face in their digital lives, and suggest that many adult efforts to help--"Get off your phone!" "Just don't sext!"--fall short.

Weinstein and James warn against a single-minded focus by adults on "screen time." Teens worry about dependence on their devices, but disconnecting means being out of the loop socially, with absence perceived as rudeness or even a failure to be there for a struggling friend. Drawing on a multiyear project that surveyed more than 3,500 teens, the authors explain that young people need empathy, not exasperated eye-rolling. Adults should understand the complicated nature of teens' online life rather than issue commands, and they should normalize--let teens know that their challenges are shared by others--without minimizing or dismissing. Along the way, Weinstein and James describe different kinds of sexting and explain such phenomena as watermarking nudes, comparison quicksand, digital pacifiers, and collecting receipts. Behind Their Screens offers essential reading for any adult who cares about supporting teens in an online world.

Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise – Dana Suskind, MD (April 2022)

Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal reviews

World-class pediatric surgeon, social scientist, and best-selling author of Thirty Million Words Dr. Dana Suskind returns with a revelatory new look at the neuroscience of early childhood development--and how it can guide us toward a future in which every child has the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Her prescription for this more prosperous and equitable future, as clear as it is powerful, is more robust support for parents during the most critical years of their children's development. In her poignant new book, Parent Nation, written with award-winning science writer Lydia Denworth, Dr. Suskind helps parents recognize both their collective identity and their formidable power as custodians of our next generation.

Weaving together the latest science on the developing brain with heart-breaking and relatable stories of families from all walks of life, Dr. Suskind shows that the status quo--scores of parents convinced they should be able to shoulder the enormous responsibility of early childhood care and education on their own--is not only unsustainable, but deeply detrimental to the wellbeing of children, families, and society.

Anyone looking for a blueprint for how to build a brighter future for our children will find one in Parent Nation. Informed by the science of foundational brain development as well as history, political science, and the lived experiences of families around the country, this book clearly outlines how society can and should help families meet the developmental needs of their children. Only then can we ensure that all children are able to enjoy the promise of their potential.

Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World – Devorah Heitner, PhD (September 2023)

Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal reviews

Between social media, constant connection, and addictive tech and smartphones, the boundaries of privacy are stretched thin. We can track our kids' every move with apps, see their grades within minutes of being posted, and fixate on their digital footprint, anxious that a misstep could cause them to be "canceled" or even jeopardize their admission to college.

All of this adds pressure on kids, particularly Gen Z, who are coming of age immersed in social media platforms that compete for their attention and emphasize "personal brand," "likes," and "gotcha" moments. How are kids supposed to figure out who they really are with zero privacy and constant judgment? Growing Up in Public shows us that by focusing on character, rather than the threat of getting caught or exposed, we can support our kids to be authentically themselves. The key is mentoring, not monitoring.

Drawing on her extensive work with parents and schools as well as hundreds of interviews with kids, parents, educators, clinicians, and scholars, Heitner offers strategies for parenting our kids in an always-connected world. With relatable stories and research-backed advice, Growing Up in Public empowers parents to cut through the overwhelm to connect with their kids, recognize how to support them, and help them figure out who they are when everyone is watching.

Who’s raising the kids?: Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children – Susan Linn (September 2022)

Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Library Journal reviews

Even before COVID-19, digital technologies had become deeply embedded in children's lives, despite a growing body of research detailing the harms of excessive immersion in the unregulated, powerfully seductive world of the "kid-tech" industry.

In the "must read" (Library Journal, starred review) Who's Raising the Kids?, Susan Linn--one of the world's leading experts on the impact of Big Tech and big business on children--weaves an "eye-opening and disturbing exploration of how marketing tech to children is creating a passive, dysfunctional generation" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). From birth, kids have become lucrative fodder for tech, media, and toy companies, from producers of exploitative games and social media platforms to "educational" technology and branded school curricula of dubious efficacy.

Written with humor and compassion, Who's Raising the Kids? is a unique and highly readable social critique and guide to protecting kids from exploitation by the tech, toy, and entertainment industries. Two hopeful chapters--"Resistance Parenting" and "Making a Difference for Everybody's Kids"--chart a path to allowing kids to be the children they need to be.

Digital Madness: How Social Media is Driving our Mental Health Crisis – and How to Restore our Sanity – Nicholas Kardaras, PhD (September 2022)

Kirkus and Publishers Weekly reviews

In Digital Madness, Dr. Kardaras answers the question of why young people's mental health is deteriorating as we become a more technologically advanced society. While enthralled with shiny devices and immersed in Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, our young people are struggling with record rates of depression, loneliness, anxiety, overdoses and suicide. What's driving this mental health epidemic? Our immersion in toxic social media has created polarizing extremes of emotion and addictive dependency, while also acting as a toxic "digital social contagion", spreading a variety of psychiatric disorders.

The algorithm-fueled polarity of social media also shapes the brain's architecture into inherently pathological and reactive "black and white" thinking--toxic for politics and society, but also symptomatic of several mental disorders. Digital Madness also examines how the profit-driven titans of Big Tech have created our unhealthy tech-dependent lifestyle: sedentary, screen-staring, addicted, depressed, isolated and empty--all in the pursuit of increased engagement, data mining and monetization.

But there is a solution. Dr. Kardaras offers a path out of our crisis, using examples from classical philosophy that encourage resilience, critical thinking and the pursuit of sanity-sustaining purpose in people's lives. Digital Madness is a crucial book for parents, educators, therapists, public health professionals, and policymakers who are searching for ways to restore our young people's mental and physical health.

10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming From Taking Over Their Children’s Lives – Jean M. Twenge, PhD (2025)

Publishers Weekly and Library Journal reviews

Parenting today often feels like an uphill battle, with technology invading every corner of our kids' lives. From the rise of social media addiction to the growing mental health crisis among children and teens, parents are grappling with how they can create a healthy, balanced relationship with technology for their kids.

Bestselling author Jean Twenge provides the much-needed playbook parents have been asking for. Drawing on her decades as a psychologist studying the impact of technology and mental health and her personal experience as the mother of three teenagers, Twenge offers ten actionable rules for raising independent and well-rounded children. From setting "No Social Media Until 16" boundaries to creating no-phone zones like bedrooms and family dinners, these rules are grounded in evidence yet simple enough to incorporate into any family routine.

Short, empowering, and timely, this book equips parents with the tools to combat not just immediate harms such as online bullying but also helps to nurture essential life skills, preparing kids and teens to become autonomous adults.

The Screentime Solution: A Judgment-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family – Emily Cherkin, MEd (2024)

Booklist and Shelf Awareness reviews

Author Emily Cherkin--aka The Screentime Consultant--has written a compelling and necessary book about parenting in the modern digital age. Unlike any previous generation, children's excessive screen use today at home and at school impacts mental health and family relationships. Parents have concerns about the amount of time children spend on devices and want to do better. They're just not sure what to do or where to start.
In The Screentime Solution, Emily teaches parents to become "tech-intentional" using screen-based technologies to enhance, nurture, and align with family values while avoiding, delaying, or limiting screentime that interferes with healthy mental, physical, cognitive, and emotional development.
With humor, empathy, and experience, Emily invites parents to

• become tech-intentional, without feeling judged, shamed, or blamed;
• implement her research-supported, developmentally appropriate tools to find screentime balance; and
• build a movement around tech-intentionality (this is good for everyone--children and adults alike).

The Screentime Solution will remain useful even as technology changes because being tech-intentional is an approach that can--and should--remain a constant.