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Indistractable
Screens Are the Latest Invention NOT Ruining Kids
We have to help our children manage their tech usage — not outlaw it
Nir Eyal is the author of the new book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. This piece is part of a weeklong series on how to battle distraction, co-edited by Eyal.
Our fears about what technology and smartphones are doing to our kids has reached a fever pitch. Articles with headlines like “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” and “The Risk Of Teen Depression And Suicide Is Linked To Smartphone Use” have, ironically enough, gone viral online.
“It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades,” writes Dr. Jean Twenge in The Atlantic. “Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.”
Convinced by the ominous headlines and fed up with their kids’ tech distractions, some parents have resorted to extreme measures. A YouTube search reveals thousands of videos of parents storming into their kids’ rooms, unplugging the computers or gaming consoles, and smashing the devices to bits in order to teach their kids a lesson.
Parents often turn to convenient myths to explain away…
