By now (Fall, 2024) the mental health and other challenges faced by young people are mainstream topics of conversation. I am sure there are some folks who aren’t really aware, but it seems unlikely that any parent, educator, coach, counselor, etc is not at least familiar with the rough outlines.
Young people, especially adolescents, are suffering from record high (and increasing) levels of stress, depression, anxiety, attentional, and other mental and cognitive issues. Outcomes that were until recently unlikely, are now common place. Jon Haidt lays out the data in devastating detail in “The Anxious Generation”, although plenty of other researchers have been issuing warnings for over a decade. Even I was writing about this as far back as 2019 for Camping Magazine https://www.acacamps.org/article/camping-magazine/maybe-not-inevitable-case-technology-free-summer-camp
Much of the blame for these detrimental outcomes is rightly attributed to the impacts of technology (smartphones, video games, social media, streaming video). I argue that at least as much harm is done by the opportunity costs these technologies impose on users. After all, time is finite, and a minute or hour spent doom-scrolling is, by definition, a minute or hour that is not spent playing with friends, participating with a community group, reading a book, walking in nature, sleeping, or engaging in any number of beneficial activities.
Add up enough minutes and hours in a day, and those lost benefits will be felt just as much as the toxic impacts of the technological usurpers. We don’t yet have an accurate way to measure the toxic impact of a lost hour of sleep compared to the impact of an hour spent scrolling TikTok, but we can be certain that the combined effects will be harmful in short order. We see the same hockey stick line show up whenever we graph time using tech vs mental health.
Putting that thought aside for a moment, I want to unpack an idea that gained significance in the early part of the 21st century, and has become an article of faith by now. The idea is that of the digital divide. Commonly defined as the gap between those who have access to computers and the internet, and those who do not, the digital divide was a legitimate area of concern in the early 2000’s, when computers were expensive, non-portable, and required access to a phone line for internet access. As the role of computers and the internet become ever more important in education and the economy, a lack of access would significantly reduce the chances for success.
That was before the advent of the smartphone, and the ubiquitous roll out of WiFi and cellular data. Those technology advances did more to bridge the digital divide than the policy efforts of educators and public servants, although those policy efforts also produced cultural expectations that are still in place today. Most children in the US (and much of the Western World) now have access to multiple internet connected devices throughout their day, with a phone and a laptop being the average, a gaming console, desktop computer, and smartTV not far behind. In 2023, Pew reported that virtually all teens (96%) use the internet daily, with half reporting they use it “constantly”. There is no longer a divide between those who have access, and those who do not. Everyone is online. All the time. It is expected, it is normal, and it is viewed as an inevitability. There is a strong, and strange when examined, element of faith in the rise and acceptance of technology. Fatalism perhaps?
But there is a new digital divide that may open, and it is one that is desirable from a perspective of personal and economic success. The new digital divide is the gulf that will widen between those who choose to disconnect from the digital world, and those who don’t, or can’t, or won’t. Let’s explore first the question of why some individuals are choosing to question the dogma, and taking a step back from tech ubiquity.
If it is not obvious from the outcomes sketched out in earlier paragraphs, there is snowballing evidence pointing to the negative impacts of digital technology on mental health and other outcomes. The evidence for these harms is fairly recent, but a consensus is emerging that has been well documented by researchers like Haidt, Twenge, and even Orban, who previously defended social media as being beneficial (and has since reversed course).
What is not emerging, but is in fact already very well established, is a large body of evidence supporting the benefits of activities that have little or nothing to do with technology. That is to say, IRL (In Real Life) activities. Things like – sleep, time spent in nature, socializing with friends, engaging in civic or community activities, playing with peers, exercise, reading physical books.
Each of these activities has been studied extensively over a number of decades and has been demonstrated to have positive impacts in a range of domains – physiological, cognitive, mental health, social skills, community health. All kinds of outcomes are improved – lifespans, academic outcomes, empathy, democracy…the list goes on. Again, these activities and their positive outcomes have an extensive history in academic literature, and those benefits have not been in serious doubt for many years. It is important to keep in mind that many of these beneficial activities are those we choose to do, usually in our free time.
However, many of these beneficial activities are susceptible to interference by digital technologies. Our brains get easily hijacked, and intentional choices in the design of digital technology (in particular those technologies that are part of the attention economy) exploit these vulnerabilities. This hijacking mostly steals time and attention away from beneficial activities, given that the beneficial activities are least likely to be mandated. That is not to say that technology is not interfering with work or school, just that it is interfering more, and with greater consequence, in those activities we must exercise autonomy in order to participate.
Faced with the choice of just another video or settling in for sleep, we often choose just one more video (and then one more, and then and then). Or our need to see a friend gets satiated by sending a couple of texts and posting to social media, so we never actually meet for coffee. Or the time we could go for a hike through the woods evaporates in an immersive game that somehow just knows how to keep us from walking away. Maybe it’s the choice to scroll a little longer vs picking up a book.
Another way of saying this is that technology has its hooks in our brains, and is reducing the agency/autonomy of individuals in how they spend their time.
Think of it this way. In addition to those hijacking efforts, the pleasures of time spent doing IRL activities are often quiet, frequently inconsistent, sometimes slow to develop, and even delayed until the future; the pleasures of digital activities are instant, splashy, and easily repeated. When it comes to the parts of our brain that seek out pleasure, the playing field has been tilted far out of level. It isn’t a fair contest.
Which is why some people are looking at all this and are now making a conscious decision to step away from technology. Not just using devices less. Spending time without devices present at all. We’re now seeing individuals, families, communities designating times, spaces, activities, peer groups as tech free.
All kinds of organizations and events are now explicitly tech free. Some schools are finally waking up to the digital vampires they invited through the door and have started winding back EdTech. Employers large and small are banning phones and devices from all sorts of work spaces from conference rooms to warehouses, worried about the distractions they pose. Yes, the vast majority of places, times and spaces are still completely dominated by technology, but there are some green shoots starting to push towards the sunlight. These shoots are starting where people have been able to take the time to become informed, have recognized and appreciate the opportunity costs, and have the financial and social wherewithal to withdraw from the internet and attention economy by choice.
Unfortunately, not everyone is able, or willing, to renounce technology for any length of time. Disturbing time use statistics show that children and teens from lower socioeconomic households and neighborhoods spend more time online, using social media, and looking at screens; and less time outside, than their middle-class peers. There are many more schools that require students to be looking at a screen for a majority of the school day than those who use screens sparingly. Many, many jobs require employees to be at a desk, in front of a screen, for the entire 40 hour work week, and often expect a laptop or phone to be within constant reach outside of office hours.
And thus, a new digital divide begins to open. The divide between those who get to experience time away from the digital landscape, and those who don’t. Those who can advocate effectively for themselves or their kids to step away from the internet, and those who can’t. Those who know the value of time in device free spaces, and those who aren’t yet aware.
At camp, we have been fortunate to always be device free. We kind of just stayed in the same spot, and let the pendulum start swinging back towards us. At first it was simply “this is the way” (thanks Mandolorian). Then we started paying attention to what was going on outside of camp, and within, and realized we were on to something.
It will be interesting to see how wide the new digital divide grows. Our hope is that our society moves towards the direction of communities like MTC as a whole, and that some people don’t get left behind, while others benefit. Maybe the best we can do is to keep providing a device free experience for young people, and hope that example spreads.
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