[[../writing/Bibliography]] Haidt, Jonathan. ‘End the Phone-Based Childhood Now’. _The Atlantic_, 13 Mar. 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/. *(describes two waves of the Internet: 1990s arrival of dial-up internet, millennial teens were actually "psychologically healthier and happier", 2000s social-media platforms were introduced – however internet access was still usually via. desktop computer in shared living space, and cellphones were basic and difficult to type on.)* Basic phones were tools that helped Millennials meet up with one another in person or talk with each other one-on-one. I have seen no evidence to suggest that basic cellphones harmed the mental health of Millennials. A recent study led by the University of Chicago economist Leonardo Bursztyn captured the dynamics of the social-media trap precisely. The researchers recruited more than 1,000 college students and asked them how much they’d need to be paid to deactivate their accounts on either Instagram or TikTok for four weeks. That’s a standard economist’s question to try to compute the net value of a product to society. On average, students said they’d need to be paid roughly $50 ($59 for TikTok, $47 for Instagram) to deactivate whichever platform they were asked about. Then the experimenters told the students that they were going to try to get most of the others in their school to deactivate that same platform, offering to pay them to do so as well, and asked, Now how much would you have to be paid to deactivate, if most others did so? The answer, on average, was less than zero. In each case, most students were willing to pay to have that happen. Later in the study, students were asked directly, “Would you prefer to live in a world without Instagram [or TikTok]?” A majority of students said yes––58 percent for each app. Social media is all about network effects. Most people are only on it because everyone else is too. Most would prefer that nobody be on these platforms. – Jonathan Haidt, *End the Phone-Based Childhood Now* ^d945b4 This is the textbook definition of what social scientists call a *collective-action problem*. It's what happens when a group would be better off if everyone in the group took a particular action, but each actor is deterred from acting, because unless the others do the same, the personal cost outweighs the benefit. Fishermen considering limiting their catch to avoid wiping out the local fish population are caught in this same kind of trap. If no one else does it too, they just lose profit. – Jonathan Haidt, *End the Phone-Based Childhood Now* ^ebd97f *(goes on to name Four Norms to Break Four Traps: no smartphones before high school so no fomo for kids w/ friends that have phones; no social media before 16 re. kids feeling the need to open sm accounts bc their friends are posting there; phone-free schools; more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world)*