Getting kids off their phones is one thing, but giving them a childhood they don’t want to spend staring at a screen is another. That’s the challenge at the heart of Jonathan Haidt’s work. The NYU Stern social psychologist and bestselling author of The Anxious Generation argues that children need both stronger protections online and more freedom offline. His four proposed changes are straightforward, even if putting them into practice isn’t: no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and more independence, free play, and responsibility.
Now Haidt and Alexa Arnold, cofounder and CEO of the TAG Movement, are working to turn those recommendations into lasting changes in homes, schools, and public policy. Their campaign is becoming a permanent nonprofit, with a widening focus that includes AI chatbots and classroom technology. We asked Haidt what the research says about phone-free schools, why restoring free play has proved harder than restricting screens, and what comes next. Arnold also shares where parents can start — including those whose kids already have smartphones.
Katie Couric Media: Since The Anxious Generation came out, what’s actually changed for kids? Which changes have you been most excited to see — and what’s taking longer than you’d hoped?
Jonathan Haidt: The amount of progress since the book was published is something I could never have imagined. I have been astonished by the collective action of parents, teachers, young people, and policymakers in the U.S. and around the world.
In less than three years, 42 states have passed phone-free school policies. Over a dozen countries are moving on age minimums and mandated design changes for social media platforms. Culture is changing at warp speed: ’90s nostalgia is trending, the landline is coming back for kids, and Big Tech is facing a growing backlash from the public and accountability in the courts.
I’ve always been pragmatic about the glacial pace of federal policy, but I continue to hope for Congress to finally stand up for American families and better protect children online.
Phone-free school policies have caught on. Are they working? What’s improved, and what are we still waiting for the evidence to show?
Jonathan Haidt: My research lab has put together a working paper outlining seven natural experiments, summarizing the test score effects and effects on all other outcomes documented in the existing research on phone-free schools. The results on test scores are encouraging. The studies primarily found either beneficial effects or neutral effects, with few negative effects, especially among the cases where phone use actually declined in schools. We also now have the first-ever large-scale randomized controlled trial: the gold standard of scientific evidence. Sungu and colleagues found that phone bans during lectures at higher education institutions in India led to statistically significant improvements in lower-performing and first-year students’ GPAs.
But test scores are not the only outcomes that schools care about. In fact, many schools implement these policies for a wide variety of other reasons, including classroom distraction, school culture, student well-being and belonging, bullying, and more. While fewer studies have explored this wider range of outcomes, among the studies that have, there is documented evidence of benefits such as reduced bullying and disciplinary incidents — though notably, in some cases (such as disciplinary incidents), the outcomes get worse before they get better.
It will take more time, but it currently appears that phone-free schools are producing more social interaction in class, and a lot more noise and laughter in the hallways and at lunch. Teachers like their jobs more, and some schools report big increases in library books taken out. All of these social benefits seem to kick in in the first few months. I hope other researchers will study these widely reported social and behavioral effects more systematically.
A phone policy sounds great until October rolls around and everyone starts bending the rules. What separates the schools where it sticks from the schools where phones sneak back in?
Jonathan Haidt: Well, it’s essential that enforcement is maintained, and I applaud all the school administrators and teachers leading the way. Many jurisdictions in the U.S. are limiting student phone use only during instructional time. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, I would urge every district to consider bell-to-bell restrictions in order to reap the full benefits of a phone-free school policy.
Limiting phone use only during instructional time still allows for students to rush to their phones between classes, at lunch, and during recess, costing them valuable opportunities to connect with one another face-to-face. Students may also find it harder to fully focus during class time if they know their phone is waiting just outside the door. In this way, the attention fragmentation is not limited to the moments when students are actively using their phones — it can also affect their attention and engagement when the phone is out of reach.
You’ve argued that kids need more than just less screen time: They need more freedom, play, and time together in the real world. Are you seeing progress there? What’s one change a school or neighborhood could make without forming a committee first?
Jonathan Haidt: Absolutely!
Smartphones are the symptom of a deeper problem: the crisis in childhood itself. Children need vast quantities of free play, independence, and responsibility to guide brain development and social development. Being a kid is about the fun, risk, challenges, and thrills of exploring the richness of life with friends at your side and no parents in sight. Most people born before the mid-1980s cherish memories of this kind of childhood, making them receptive to this fourth norm.
I should note that this norm is spreading more slowly than the other three because it is not the case that the great majority of parents already wanted to send their children outside to play with no supervision. The term “anxious generation” applies not only to Gen Z but also to their parents, who are stuck in a collective action problem: How can I send my kids outside when nobody else is doing it, when they would prefer to be on their devices, when I don’t know most people in the neighborhood, and — oh, did I mention that someone might call the police?
To spread this norm will require more time, more persuasion, and more collective action. This is one of the reasons why Catherine Price and I teamed up to write The Amazing Generation.
Young people are the ones who have been most affected by the negative effects of smartphones. They’re the targets of Big Tech — but they also hold a lot of power! In order for kids to be smart about screens, it’s important for them to have the facts about screens, social media, and the tech companies that manipulate them for profit.
Conversations and conflicts over technology are happening in every family. We want kids to be fully informed participants in those conversations. In the book, we created “The Rebel’s Code.” A Rebel is someone who lives by these rules:
- Use technology as a tool. Don’t let technology use you.
- Fill your life with real friendship, freedom, and fun.
Our goal in writing this book was to arm kids with the facts and empower them to stand up for themselves by choosing a life not dominated by screens. And they are! When they're fully informed, many kids make their own decision to delay getting a smartphone or opening a social media account. They choose to have a more fun childhood in the real world.
We’re also seeing action on the fourth norm at the legislative level. Earlier this year, our team published the Childhood Index, ranking all 50 states on the strength of their laws and leadership across phone-free schools, childhood independence, social media age limits, and tech regulation. By highlighting effective policies and key opportunities, it serves as a benchmark for state leaders and an actionable tool to help them accelerate progress. Included in our evaluation is a consideration of how states are (or are not) encouraging increased childhood independence and enabling alternatives to technology usage. So far, we’ve seen 13 states, both liberal and conservative, pass “Reasonable Childhood Independence” laws.
You and Jon have gone from a book-inspired campaign to building the TAG Movement into a permanent organization. Why did this work need a permanent home, and what do you hope TAG will accomplish?
Alexa Arnold: When The Anxious Generation came out in 2024, Jon put into words something many of us were already feeling: Technology had moved faster than our instincts, our schools, and our laws could keep up with. And kids were suffering through this social experiment.
For so many teachers, parents, young people, and policymakers, the book gave them the evidence and momentum they needed to accelerate the social change they’d already been driving. And for others it was the spark. With a small and mighty team, Jon and I launched a campaign to turn the book’s solutions into reality. We knew we were up against a monumental problem, but we also knew we had to act.
We heard heartbreaking stories from parent survivors. We talked with governors and heads of state. We worked hand in hand with parents hungry to act and with young people who were fed up with paying the price. We partnered with incredible grassroots organizations and advocates to provide teachers and policymakers with tools and model bills.
Yet, the threats keep coming. It’s not just smartphones and social media anymore — it’s a new wave of AI chatbots reaching kids faster than anyone can vet and an oversaturation of educational technology that hasn’t yet been shown to help kids learn. The childhood our kids deserve is within reach, but there is no way to outparent an addictive algorithm.
This is why the TAG Movement is evolving from a three-year campaign into a 501(c)(3): a permanent home for this work, built to outlast any book, campaign, or news cycle. This movement has never been about one book, one person, or one organization. This movement has progressed because of every parent who has changed a house rule, every young person speaking up about what accountable tech looks like, every teacher pushing for a bell-to-bell phone-free school policy, and every legislator willing to champion this issue. TAG’s job is to make sure no one does this work alone, and to help create a world where all kids have room to flourish.
For a parent reading this who thinks, “Sounds great, but my kid already has a phone and every friend is on social media,” where would you tell them to start?
Alexa Arnold: I’d remind parents that they’re allowed to change their mind. We know more now than we did a few years ago. We have more research, more experience, and, for many of us, firsthand evidence of what these technologies can do to family life. Learning something new gives us permission to make a different choice.
That doesn’t mean we have to pretend our earlier decisions never happened. And it doesn’t mean changing course will always be easy. It may be uncomfortable or even painful. But we can create new rules. We can sit down with our kids and say: “We made the best decision we could with what we knew then. We know more now, and we want to try something different.”
It’s also true that almost no parent wants to be the only one who doesn’t let their kid have a smartphone or social media. As Jon wrote in The Anxious Generation, this is a collective action problem. That is, we’re in a social dilemma that we can only solve if we act together.
This is why the TAG Movement exists — so that no parent has to do this alone, and kids are surrounded by friends making similar decisions. As a parent, you have more power than you think, and we have a bunch of resources on our website to help you get started. The steps you take at home, in your school, and in your community make a real difference and are only amplified when we work together.
