Smartphones are destroying kids — but where are the parents?

Over Mother’s Day dinner on Sunday, my college-aged niece ribbed my mother for constantly misplacing her iPhone.

My mom, who is in her seventh decade, cracked, “Unlike you, I was not born with a cellphone in my hand, so it’s not an appendage for me.”

It was good-natured family banter.

But sitting between a Boomer and a Zoomer, I, a young Gen Xer, could see the full spectrum and development of our smartphone habits.

Generally speaking, Millennials and younger Generation Xers are the ones now raising kids. We’re old enough to remember the virtues of our device-free childhoods — and to appreciate how technology has made our lives both better and worse as adults.

And having seen both sides, I can’t help but feel we need a more conservative approach to the lingering debate over when kids should be allowed smartphones.

Then this morning, more evidence for this arrived in my inbox.

A new study from nonprofit research organization Sapien Labs reports that the younger kids are when they’re first given smartphones or tablets, the worse their mental health as adults. To no surprise, this connection is more intense in females.

Sapien Labs runs an ongoing survey into mental global health. For its most recent report, it asked nearly 29,000 adults ages 18 to 24 at what age they received their first smartphone or portable device with internet access.

Then they cross-referenced those responses against answers to comprehensive questions about respondents’ current mental health.

The later someone received a device, the better their current mental health.

Girls who received one under the age of 10 were particularly negatively impacted later on in life — with mental health scores indicating they’re currently “dealing with, or at risk for, a serious mental health condition.”

It’s a pretty compelling endorsement for parents who have held out on giving their young offspring a handheld window to the world.

According to Common Sense Media, a majority of kids have a phone by 11, and in 2021, about one in five kids between the ages of 8 and 12 were on social media. By age 14, smartphone ownership hit 91%.

Even at my “I watched the OJ verdict in high school” age, I’ve seen how the smartphone has chipped away at my own attention span, exasperated my insomnia and given me irrational FOMO.

How is a child without a fully developed prefrontal cortex supposed to manage all of the online stimuli?

Especially impressionable girls, for whom the smartphone is essentially a portal to a hellscape of unrealistic beauty standards, facial filters, photoshopped bodies and bizarre gender ideology, to name a few landmines.

Raising children in today’s world is a treadmill set to full speed where most likely both parents are working full time. Youth sports and other extracurriculars have put so many demands on adults’ time, wallets and patience, that in the pursuit of sanity, something gives.

Usually it’s those well-intentioned rules — like that promise not to give your kid a smartphone before they turn 14. It’s easy to cave when kids are complaining that they’re the lone phone-free one in their peer group. Also, parents want to be able to reach their children in case of an emergency.

I have no children of my own. But I’m a very active in the lives of my friends’ kids. I’m involved and present at games, in the home and on vacations. I ask a lot of questions of both my pals and their kids, and I see trends emerging with behavior and parenting styles.

More than anything, I see the effectiveness of guardrails such as parental controls limiting what and when kids can watch. And I see the power of saying “no.”

Setting a later threshold and sticking to it not only helps kids to deal with disappointment and rejection, but also helps acquaint them with the concept of delayed gratification— pretty much nonexistent in our on-demand society where every creature comfort is available through an app on your phone.

Furthermore, children are unable to grasp the responsibility that comes with unfettered access to smartphones.

And as parents, teachers and authority figures, we’d be abdicating our own responsibilities if we freely hand unprepared kids this loaded weapon.