Education Week reports that we are in a student mental health crisis. So does the surgeon general. Will taking cellphones away from kids while they’re in school help us get out of this crisis? I asked the science search engine Consensus to do a survey of studies on school cellphone bans and mental health. Consensus reviewed ten scientific
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There is a sudden movement in the Western World to take smartphones away from kids. It started in the summer of 2022 when social psychologist Jonathan Haidt at New York University, the father of two adolescents, was writing a book about what he called “the pervasive negative effects of the internet and social media on
The Internet has been under constant attack for the last 20 years as the source of all of our emotional woes, from depression, cyberbullying, and suicide to negative body image. The anti-Internet attack has been so fierce that nine states have tried to ban social media access for kids under sixteen or to require the
A story broke in Newsweek magazine April 10th claiming that a study in a high prestige medical journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Psychiatry, revealed that teenagers who spend a lot of time playing video games and who use their computers heavily are more likely to have a psychotic episode. In the study Newsweek was reporting on, seven researchers in
The TikTok issue is one of the biggest damned if you do, damned if you don’t problems on America’s agenda. On April 14, 2023, nearly a year ago, Montana became the first state to try to ban TikTok, but a US District Judge put a temporary halt to the ban, saying it “oversteps state power,”
Norman Lear died Tuesday, December 5th, at the age of 101 at his home in LA.  The headlines mourn his passing.  What they miss is his victory. Norman Lear lived to be 101 years old.  That’s a startling achievement. Why was Lear able to live so long?  In part, because he cherished the joys in life.  He said, “Life is made
Why are people acting so crazy these days? Because crazy behavior is becoming the new normal.  In other words, what was clearly insane ten years ago is normal today. Why? One of the most potent causes is what researchers call “toxic leadership.” We have an example of toxic leadership in the firing of the Speaker of
“MJ the Musical†is described as “The new Broadway musical that takes audiences inside the creative process of one of the greatest entertainers in history. Featuring over 25 of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits, MJ allows us to re-discover the man in the mirror, with an explosion of music, choreography and theatricality as unforgettable as the