With apologies to Allen Ginsberg:
I'm watching the best minds of our high school generation destroyed by Flamin' Hot Cheetos and iPhones.
Teenagers on the cusp of adulthood who drag themselves out of bed every day to use TikTok and Snapchat.
Measuring themselves against the yardstick of super-filtered Kardashian perfection and falling short,
Get expelled from school for sending AI-generated nude photos of classmates.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
I want to howl for what is happening to our children. Between the negative brain effects of ultra-processed foods and what can only be described as smartphone use disorder, something has gone horribly wrong.
It just so happens that you caught me at a bad time. Lately in our house, the 13 year old and I seem to have daily conflicts over food and the phone.
When he moved in with me at age 8, he had a smartphone, which I immediately put away. His preference for ultra-processed foods was already well established; She had been raised on a diet rich in fast food and lunchables.
We very consciously waited until eighth grade to buy him an iPhone, as many childhood experts recommend, but honestly, I don't think we waited long enough. His first non-smart phone allowed him to take pictures, make calls and send text messages, but it had no Internet features. In my opinion, it was perfect. In his, an embarrassment.
When her iPhone arrived earlier this school year, everything changed. Even though we made a contract that outlined the rules, his phone was never out of sight. Even when it was supposed to be put away, surreptitious use continued: in the classroom and at the table. It became an appendage.
Taking away our phone as a consequence of breaking the rules, a stipulation in our contract, resulted in a crisis. How are young teens supposed to regulate their phone use when they haven't yet figured out how to regulate their mood or relationships? Giving a child a smartphone is like putting a bomb in their hands and hoping it never explodes.
I'm exhausted trying to manage my niece's phone behavior and making sure she's on a diet that doesn't turn her into a diabetic teenager. (No, I'm not shaming anyone! What I'm pointing out is that there is a relationship between the quality of the food we eat, what we drink, and the state of our health.)
On Monday I opened the Wall Street Journal and found a story with an illustration of a human brain made entirely of Cheetos. They should have added a picture of what their kids' hands look like after consuming a bag of them. Or your furniture.
“Ultra-processed foods can not only affect our body,” the article began, “but also our brain. “New research suggests links between ultra-processed foods (such as chips, many cereals and most packaged snacks in the supermarket) and changes in the way we learn, remember and feel.”
Because foods mimic other addictive substances, the article said, “some scientists are proposing a new mental health condition called 'ultra-processed food disorder.' “
That's why I thank California lawmakers for being willing to consider a bill that would ban foods in public schools containing artificial colors that have been linked to brain changes.
No one is suggesting that all of these foods should be banned for everyone, all the time; Only, like sugary soft drinks, they should not be offered or sold at school during school hours.
Every weekday morning, I drop my niece off at school and watch as nearly all the children shuffle along, heads down, eyes focused not on the world around them, but on their smartphones. They cross the street looking at their smartphones. They are in groups looking at their smartphones. When I pick her up in the afternoon, the same thing.
Last week in the Atlantic, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University's Stern School of Business, proposed that smartphones have changed the very nature of childhood, and not for the better.
“What is childhood, including adolescence, and how did it change when smartphones became the center of it?” Haidt asks. “If we take a more holistic view of what childhood is and what toddlers, tweens and teens need to do to mature into competent adults, the picture becomes much clearer. “It turns out that smartphone-based life disrupts or interferes with a large number of developmental processes.”
Among them, he writes, children spend less time playing with each other, less time taking physical risks (like climbing trees!), less time interacting face-to-face, less time learning from real-time conversation signals, and less time learning how to solve problems. conflict (why do that when you can just block your antagonist?).
It suggests that the psychological development of children born since 1996 has been “fundamentally altered” by the ubiquity of smartphones.
“Synchronous interactions make us feel closer to the other person because that's what being 'in sync' does,” he writes. “Texting, posting, and many other virtual interactions lack synchronicity. There is less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment that doesn't get an immediate response.”
Add to this the insecurities inherent in a teenager's budding sexuality, or the unspeakably mean way high school girls can behave toward each other, plus the availability of online pornography, and we have a social nightmare on our hands.
“My claim,” Haidt writes, “is that the new telephone-based childhood that took shape about 12 years ago is making young people sick and blocking their progress toward flourishing into adulthood. “We need a dramatic cultural correction and we need it now.”
He proposes four simple correctives that wouldn't cost a cent: There were no smartphones before high school. No social networks before 4pm. Schools without telephones. More independence, free play and responsibility in the real world.
How I wish it were as easy as writing common sense rules or even passing a law.
