This commentary is by A.M. Derrendinger of Middletown Springs, a rising ninth grader.
The norm today is that everyone my age has a smartphone and social media. What is not generally known is just how harmful these things are to the underdeveloped mind of the adolescent.
As a 14-year-old myself, I deny the necessity of having a personal internet-connected electronic device. Of course, people may argue that a phone will be needed for communication purposes. A landline or a talk-and-text phone satisfies that demand.
But besides this, I find that everything that is a part of growing up is better carried out without a smartphone.
Adults tell me all the time how addictive merely scrolling on a screen is for them. So how much self-control are teens my age supposed to have while being exposed to social media platforms that are algorithmically designed to keep them hooked?
It simply isn’t fair. Parents ask too much of their kids to be able to regulate themselves when handed such powerfully addictive forces.
Usage inevitably results in derailment of human functioning. Access to social media can result in emergency room visits and death. The way I see it, the idea of even possessing a device capable of providing access to such harm is unacceptable. But why, then, are so many kids, of all ages through 18, being forced to put up with it on such a large scale?
So-called safeguards and moderation of use are ineffective. These products are designed to be addictive. Compare this to smoking: you wouldn’t give someone a cigarette because it has minimal benefits like relaxation, has a filter, and then tell them to resist the addictiveness of nicotine by using it in moderation.
My peers never asked for a defective tool to make their lives miserable and unsuccessful. When children ask for a phone, they are really asking to not be left out, which is normal and reasonable. But on what planet is it okay to “be included” at the cost of so much harm? The price is ruining, and even terminating children’s lives.
When I think of what decision my parents made in raising me that I’m most grateful for, what always comes to mind as largely significant is that they have given me a screen-and-social-media-free childhood. If screens were a big part of my life, they would eventually replace everything else important to me.
We don’t need smartphones and social media, no matter how much Big Tech wants us to believe otherwise. Submitting because of the pressure to “fit in” means that my peers are being compromised to satisfy industrial greed.
When has “It’s too hard for me to forgo for x,y and z reasons” been the right response to anything that we know is dangerous? Adults, with all due respect, please be responsible. Don’t wait until your own child has been harmed to take action.
It’s been discouraging to watch so many of my peers buy into the shiny new promise of “digital is better.” My friends dismiss my entreaties for them not to pick the poisoned apple, by saying things like, “If you don’t have a phone, you’re behind the times.”
Behind?
No. Not behind, but not a part of the unhealthy norm. One after the other, I watch my peers join the crowd, all marching towards the glowing iPhone screen for a horizon. It beckons to them like some sort of masked beacon of doom. They know no better than to march on, fixated and drawn by the intoxicating glow, and can’t slow their steps as they approach the abyss into which thousands have already fallen for one reason.
Not many stay “behind” with me, and I see the consequences daily. My peers with phones and/or social media are often visibly shallower of thought, and less inclined to be interested in aspects of real life. It gets harder and harder to find other kids who are interested in much else.
The ideal alternative to a screen based childhood is as described in the Vermont Declaration of Digital Independence.
Recently in Vermont, a bill that banned smartphones in schools was passed. As this bill goes into effect, I hope parents may feel relieved of the pressure to give their children social media. One of the biggest reasons parents give social media is because schools formerly required students to use it.
Vermont schools may henceforth exemplify how much healthier phone-and-social media-free environments are to communities not only nationally but globally. Vermont is the first state to make it illegal for schools to use social media to communicate with students. Other states should follow suit ASAP.
A screen-and-social-media-free childhood should not be considered a privilege that is impossible to accomplish because it means challenging the norm. It is crucial to the lives of my generation to take this step.
For the sake of my peers, I hope that together as a community we can take the right steps towards making childhood safe, supportive and screen-independent.
