Are screens actually bad for kids, or are we just panicking for nothing?

When I wanted my nine-month old to crawl, I did the most obvious thing. I put the object he has been desiring the most about 6 feet away from him. Lo and behold, he crawled to it.

Is it a problem that that object was my iPhone?

Once I stepped back from the excitement of his crawling, I frantically googled “Fake book to hide iPhone from kid.” I was disgusted with myself. I have clearly been on my phone so much when I’m around him that he wants it more than anything — more than his blocks, more than his elephant rocker.

I have also been told that my phone is the greatest danger to his growth after (or is it before?) red dye No. 3.

Having read Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” I was convinced of what I think we all probably know innately: Smartphones and social media have broken our kids, and the fix is simply to take them away.

What we have seen, following his book, is a mad dash by government and parents alike to do just that. At least 37 states now ban the use of cellphones in schools, the U.S. surgeon general has called for warning labels on social media apps. A national consensus has formed at a rapid speed.

And although it completely makes sense intuitively that screens and social media would be terrible for our kids, there is one really big problem with that conclusion: The data do not support it … at least, not yet.

I really don’t want to knock Haidt. I think his work is fascinating and before I go any further let me admit that I did buy a fake book into which I now put my iPhone when I’m around my son. (Spoiler alert: It arrived a week ago, and I haven’t used........

© The Hill