The Kids are Not O.K.

I’m not an alarmist when it comes to how adults express their concerns about young people. Every generation bemoans the state of youth as failing, flailing, lazy, inept, or morally vacuous once they themselves have advanced to the highest level of development defined

as mature adulthood. Few remember their own struggles, missteps, thoughtless behaviors, or outright crimes. At certain times, this adult amnesia produces moral panics, full society-wide overreaction to what is wrong with kids. Often moral panics are a response to teenagers’ sexual predilections and overt behaviors^[1], which is not surprising, given how quickly we forget what we did when we were kids.

In the early 2000s when I went back to school to study adolescent development, I quickly learned that most teens make it through adolescence without what was referred to as “sturm and drang,” or as it translates, storm and stress. Certainly, life throws curve balls regardless of age, so it is obvious that a few wild throws during the teen years are nothing to be overly alarmed about. In fact, one of the research articles I read was titled, “The Kids Are Doing Alright,” published in 2001^[2].

But twenty-five years after the Roberts’ article came out, I am worried. Not all kids are having difficulties, but enough are to raise the yellow flag, if not the red one. Too many youth are struggling with anxiety and depression.^[3] Kids spend too much time alone or on their screens. Risk-taking, a hallmark of adolescence, is in decline^[4]. Too many of our children are not thriving, and some are barely surviving^[5].

One of the culprits is the amount of time that kids spend on their smartphones consuming social media or mindlessly scrolling. State governments are finally taking note of this problem and are banning cell phones during school hours. Some laws have been passed that require warning signs on apps that have been shown to cause mental health problems for young people. But the real crux of the problem is that these electronic communication tools and the software in them are designed to hook kids and exploit them. Yes, I mean get them addicted. These products are created by companies that care about profits—period. Taking smartphones away from kids is going to hurt their bottom line, so they are not going to admit that their products are dangerous for children.

We regulate all kinds of consumer goods that are bad for children: cigarettes, alcohol, sugary drinks, and unsafe toys. We make them wear bike helmets, buckle them into car seats, and put tops on bottles of pills that require a pair of vice grips to open.

Screens and social media have their place, but not in the hands of our kids. The great promise of the internet was that it was going to make us closer to each other. In fact, it has done the opposite^[6]. We and our children are lonelier than we have ever been^[7]. It is time to take screens away from kids, and put our own away as well.

Humans thrive in face-to-face interactions, not by staring at a screen. Technology is wonderful until it eats away at our humanity, and that is what it is doing now. This is not a moral panic; it is a bonafide crisis, and we need to come together and address this problem. Right now. It cannot wait.

I’m not an alarmist when it comes to how adults express their concerns about young people. Every generation bemoans the state of youth as failing, flailing, lazy, inept, or morally vacuous once they themselves have advanced to the highest level of development defined as mature adulthood. Few remember their own struggles, missteps, thoughtless behaviors, or outright crimes. At certain times, this adult amnesia produces moral panics, full society-wide overreaction to what is wrong with kids. Often moral panics are a response to teenagers’ sexual predilections and overt behaviors^[1], which is not surprising, given how quickly we forget what we did when we were kids.

In the early 2000s when I went back to school to study adolescent development, I quickly learned that most teens make it through adolescence without what was referred to as “sturm and drang,” or as it translates, storm and stress. Certainly, life throws curve balls regardless of age, so it is obvious that a few wild throws during the teen years are nothing to be overly alarmed about. In fact, one of the research articles I read was titled, “The Kids Are Doing Alright,” published in 2001^[2].

But twenty-five years after the Roberts’ article came out, I am worried. Not all kids are having difficulties, but enough are to raise the yellow flag, if not the red one. Too many youth are struggling with anxiety and depression.^[3] Kids spend too much time alone or on their screens. Risk-taking, a hallmark of adolescence, is in decline^[4]. Too many of our children are not thriving, and some are barely surviving^[5].

One of the culprits is the amount of time that kids spend on their smartphones consuming social media or mindlessly scrolling. State governments are finally taking note of this problem and are banning cell phones during school hours. Some laws have been passed that require warning signs on apps that have been shown to cause mental health problems for young people. But the real crux of the problem is that these electronic communication tools and the software in them are designed to hook kids and exploit them. Yes, I mean get them addicted. These products are created by companies that care about profits—period. Taking smartphones away from kids is going to hurt their bottom line, so they are not going to admit that their products are dangerous for children.

We regulate all kinds of consumer goods that are bad for children: cigarettes, alcohol, sugary drinks, and unsafe toys. We make them wear bike helmets, buckle them into car seats, and put tops on bottles of pills that require a pair of vice grips to open.

Screens and social media have their place, but not in the hands of our kids. The great promise of the internet was that it was going to make us closer to each other. In fact, it has done the opposite^[6]. We and our children are lonelier than we have ever been^[7]. It is time to take screens away from kids, and put our own away as well.

Humans thrive in face-to-face interactions, not by staring at a screen. Technology is wonderful until it eats away at our humanity, and that is what it is doing now. This is not a moral panic; it is a bonafide crisis, and we need to come together and address this problem. Right now. It cannot wait.

^[1] Alm, Susanne and Anders Nilsson. “Cause for Concern or Moral Panic? The Prospects of Swedish Mods in Retrospect.” Journal of Youth Studies 14, no. 7 (2011).

^[2] Roberts, Brent W., Avashalom Caspi, and Terrie E. Moffitt. “The Kids are Alright: Growth and Stability in Personality Development from Adolescence to Adulthood.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, no. 4 (2001).

^[3] Murthy, Vivak. “Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The Surgeon General’s Advisory.” (2023).

^[4] Twenge, Jean M. IGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books, 2018.

^[5] Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press, 2024.

^[6] Carr, Nicholas. Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart. W. W. Norton & Company, 2025.

^[7] Schutz, Raphael, Franziska Reiss, Irene Moor, Anne Kaman, and Ludwig Bliz. “Lonely Children and Adolescents are Less Healthy and Report Less Social Support: A Study on the Effects of Loneliness on Mental Health and the Moderating Role of Social Support.” BMC Public Health 25, no. 1 (2025).