It’s parents who are anxious about smartphones, not their children

According to Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation, the proliferation of smartphones and subsequent exposure to social media among children and young people has harmed mental well-being, resulting in an “anxious generation”. Hence Haidt’s title.

However, a closer look at the data reveals that such thinking is aimed in the wrong direction. The meaning and causes of increased rates of anxiety in young people remain complex and unclear. But simply put, when it comes to phones and modern tech, it is often parents who are the overly anxious ones, not their children.

So much of the current discourse about…