What the Moguls Knew
The people who create smartphones, tablets, and social media platforms ban their kids from using them.
When my partner and I lived in San Francisco, we weren’t parents yet. All of our friends worked in tech. Facebook and Twitter were booming, I’d just received my first smartphone, and we had a front-row seat to Instagram’s birth.
Everyone knew Steve Jobs did not let his children near an iPhone or an iPad. Bill Gates’ kids didn’t receive smartphones until age 14. Evan Spiegel, who founded Snapchat, talked about the limits he imposed on his kids’ screen time. I don’t have the space to list all the tech moguls who crack down on tech at home; just know that Silicon Valley nannies have “no screens” clauses written into their contracts.
What exact threat did the industry bigwigs see in the products they themselves developed? No idea. But I was acutely aware of what devices and social media were doing to me — the distraction, the time-suck — so I didn’t question it. Our time in Silicon Valley instilled in us the notion that phones and tablets were bad for children, based solely on the parenting choices of those who’d designed them.
When our twins were born, we adopted a similar stance. They’re now eight. I can count on one hand the number of times they’ve touched a tablet (although extended family and New York City’s Department of Education have all tried to give them iPads). The kids try to use our phones, but we lock them. We don’t make them sit through video calls with faraway loved ones. We adults try (and often fail) to restrain our use of phones around them. We own neither television nor video game consoles. Computers are for school, capped at 90 minutes a week. We make it work, but the older they get, the more isolated we are.
We weren’t sure what to fear in 2012. Now there’s data. In 2019, 95 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds in the U.S. used a smartphone. Eighty percent of teens are on social platforms. More than a third of eight- to 12-year-olds, too young to sign up for social media, have used them anyway.
It’s unclear whether tech moguls of the 2010s had taken the full measure of what they’d wrought, but they knew something we didn’t. The kids aren’t alright and social media is the top offender: comparing one’s life to others’, hanging out less with friends in person, body dysmorphia, cyberbullying, popularity contests... all these seem to be having catastrophic effects on young minds. The suicide rate of children aged ten and up has tripled in 10 years. It’s worse for girls, who spend more time than boys on social media. It’s so concerning that the U.S. Surgeon General released an advisory on social media and teens' mental health just last week.
But it’s not just the apps — the devices themselves are harmful because their light decreases the amount and quality of sleep growing bodies so desperately need. Plus, time spent in front of a screen is time taken from reading a book or exercising.
There are extensive details on how the experts ruled out other possible causes for this mental health crisis. All I’ll say is that nothing besides phones and social media use in the past 11 years explains it — not least of which because the problem is global.
I don’t know what the answer is. Families who resist are few, and the pressure mounts as years go by. Parents are very (some say overly) concerned about physical safety these days, which makes it appealing to strap GPS-equipped phones to their offspring. Governments can legislate to shield kids from social media (Utah is pioneering this effort ), which won’t fix the sleep question. And it’s not a clear-cut issue, because some children — like LGBTQ+ ones — can find online the acceptance they don’t get in real life. For kids with certain learning disabilities, access to tech has also been a boon. But even some teens are choosing flip phones after experiencing social media burnout.
By and large, experts and authorities are paying attention, and a consensus is forming that tech use among the young should be curbed.
But as this discussion gathers steam, I can’t stop thinking of the Silicon Valley bosses of the last decade. They remind me of drug dealers, who never let their kids near the products that make them rich. So I wonder: why should we?