How We Discriminate Against Kids Trying To Reclaim Their Freedom

We’ve made it hard to live without QR codes and dating apps

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

We let our kids down the day we gave them all smartphones and then looked away from whatever they were doing.

I say “we” because the great majority of adults are complicit in this. We work on computers and online; we are constantly connected to others. Our kids observe how we live, and then they demand what we have. Children, on average, now “get their first phones at 11.6 years old.”

But some kids are finally pushing back on the expectation that they must always be on their phones.

Finally, an uplifting article on digital addiction

I was very pleased to read this article in The New York Times: “Now in College, Luddite Teens Still Don’t Want Your Likes.”

Basically, some teens are rebelling against the de facto cultural requirement of being online at all times. These teens have formed “Luddite Clubs,” in which they seek meaningful, in-person connections with other kids who also don’t want every interaction they have to be mediated by tech.

As one member of such a club reported, on making the choice to use a flip phone instead of a smartphone, “this has…