Books

• The Anxious Generation - Jonathan Haidt, Phd - This is the book that really spearheaded a broad movement and surge of awareness last spring. The basic argument is that kids and teens are overprotected in the real world and underprotected online. This is an excellent starting point if you have time to read a whole book. (A note: you should feel empowered and justified in going BEYOND his recommendations instead of taking them as an exact prescription. You might choose to get your child a smartphone at the END of high school, not the beginning, and you might decide 16 is still too young for opening the Pandora’s Box of social media.)

• Screen Schooled - Joe Clement, Matt Miles - is a great and fairly short book mainly centered on screens in schools and Ed Tech's destructive impact on education. It was published in 2018. It’s shocking that things are still so much the same as when this book was written.

• The Screentime Solution - Emily Cherkin - A thorough, practical and encouraging book about parenting in the modern digital age. Emily has just released an Ed Tech Toolkit, available as a PDF through her website. 

• Stolen Focus - Johann Hari - The author has collected perspectives of leading scientists and experts about why our ability to pay attention and focus has become so fragmented. We feel like our inability to focus is a personal flaw, but it’s not. 

• Dopamine Nation - Anna Lembke, M.D. - Dr. Lembke explores the interconnection between pleasure and pain in the brain and helps explain addictive behaviors, like screen based addiction.

• Screen Damage - Michel Desmurget - Desmurget shows that current norms of screen time for children have significant detrimental consequences in terms of their health, behaviour and intellectual abilities, and strongly affect their academic outcomes.

• The Digital Delusion - Jared Cooney Horvath, Phd - Jared shows how the onslaught of digital tools in school were an answer to a question that no one had. The design of ed tech products does not align with how young people learn. Students don’t need personalization and gamefied choice, they need deep thinking and meaningful relationships.

Articles

• Sapien Labs Study - a study which shows decreasing mental health outcomes for children who received a smartphone or tablet earlier at younger ages. 

• End the Phone-Based Childhood Now -- Jonathan Haidt article summarizing The Anxious Generation in The Atlantic

• The Case for Phone Free Schools -- Haidt article from After Babel in case you run into paywall with the first one

• ‘Educational’ Screens in Classrooms Do More Harm Than Good from Newsweek

• The Question We Should All Be Asking - The Opt Out Family (hint? Who funds these organizations?)

• 16 Ways Ed Tech Harms Children - Emily Cherkin, The Screentime Consultatnt

Guides & Courses

• The Choose Your Own Adventure Guide to Smartphone Alternatives - by Catherine Price

• Parental Controls for Every Digital Device - from Protect Young Eyes - an exhaustive analysis of parental controls. Remember, this is not the solution. It’s a flawed attempt by tech companies to shift responsibility. But this is very hard. 

• A Parent's Guide to Understanding the Harms of the Phone Based Childhood, Along with Ten Tips for Rolling it Back - by Catherine Price - a practical guide to the management of technology in your child’s life. Includes a link to Catherine’s popular presentation for parents. 

• Kids, Brains and Screens - Screen Strong - a much recommended course for middle school kids about technology’s impact on the brain. Paid resource.

• Opt Out Toolkit - The Screentime Consultant - free when email provided

Podcasts, Substacks & Movies

• Chasing Childhood - movie streaming (Apple TV) - Lenore Skenazy, Peter Gray

• Childhood 2.0 - Amazon Prime - the world our kids are growing up in

• Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation) - has been on podcasts everywhere! 

• The Social Dilemma - Netflix

• How to Feel Alive (podcast) - Catherine Price - Kids, Smartphones and Social Media 

• Scrolling2Death (podcast) 

• After Babel - (substack) Jonathan Haidt and partners use moral psychology to explain why so much is going wrong.

Organizations

Wait Until 8th - https://www.waituntil8th.org/ - includes a parent pledge to use in schools/groups

Screen Sense - https://www.screensense.org

Screen Strong - https://screenstrong.org

Healthy Screen Habits - https://www.healthyscreenhabits.org/

Phone Free Schools Movement - https://www.phonefreeschoolsmovement.org

Smartphone Free Childhood - https://www.smartphonefreechildhoodus.com/ - an active whats app group with parents from all over the country

OSPREY (Old School Parents Raising Engaged Youth) - www.ospreykids.com 

Let Grow - www.letgrow.org