The byline of this essay is a pseudonym.
My daughter is one of those children that the American surgeon warned us about. Our nation’s children are “unwitting participants” in a “decade-long experiment.” Social media use poses mental health risks for young people who use it “almost constantly”, causing sleep deprivation, depression and anxiety.
Before sixth grade, my daughter saved money to walk the dog for a phone. She found a used iPhone 13 Mini on Craigslist. I set expectations to motivate getting good grades, keep her room clean and take out the trash. I had no idea that the iPhone was systematically undermining her ability to complete these tasks—and so much more.
When my daughter walked into the classroom on the inflatable arch on her first day of high school, I took comfort in the fact that I could reach her. Like most parents, I associated the phone with safety, not danger. I didn’t know social media developers were manipulating her next swing or that her “human future” was being sold to the highest bidder to enrich the richest corporations in human history.
I learned the hard way – through my daughter’s lies, manipulations, shortcomings. Through her “zebra stripes” scars outlined across her arms.
Her photo from sixth grade captures my daughter’s “emo” phase: feather earring, Pink Floyd T-shirt, and crooked smile. The innocence in that picture was quickly replaced by a selfie. Selfie peace sign over pursed lips. Head tilt, half face, full body selfie. Selfie in bed. Her camera roll documents my baby’s downward spiral. Crying selfies, awkward selfies, can’t-leave-the-bedroom selfies.
In the spring semester, my daughter had bad results in school. I took her for a psychiatric evaluation, assuming she had ADHD. The afternoon sun filtered through the faux wooden blinds and cast streaks of light across her ubiquitous black hoodie. The doctor’s questions began predictably. Having trouble focusing in class? Completing homework? Dormant? Then the conversation turned horrible. Do you feel like your life is not worth living? Have you ever hurt yourself? Do you wish you were dead?
I stared at my child’s profile, every “yes” tearing at my insides.
The doctor diagnosed my daughter with depression and anxiety. Further testing showed that gaining approval from her friends occupied 80% of her attention. No wonder she was failing math. It was a miracle she even passed any of her classes with only 20% of her brain available for school.
The doctor prescribed therapy and Lexapro. While helpful, the doctor failed to alert me to widespread phone trends among high school students. I have since learned that my daughter is among the first generation of 10- to 14-year-olds active on social media. Among these girls, the number of suicides increased by 151%, self-harm by 182%. Her treatment assumed that her struggles were individual, as opposed to structural. We prescribe medicines to solve this social crisis.
At the time, I ignored this dynamic and allowed my daughter to continue using social media. One day I got a text from another mom. I stared at the screen wondering why this mom sent me a graphic selfie. Then I recognized the mark on the woman’s chest. My child’s mole.
My daughter gasped when I showed her the photo. She handed over her phone. I discovered that she bypassed screen limits and used social media until late in the morning. She sent the picture to someone named PJ on Snapchat. He claimed to be a 16-year-old boy, but his response was so graphic that I suspected someone older. I was horrified to realize that the phone was a two-way street, with platforms that adults could use to kidnap and traffic our children.
I called a family meeting with my daughter, her father and her stepmother. My daughter deleted her social media accounts and gave up her phone until the school year started. As the summer months passed with travel, in-person meetings, and family time, my daughter came back to herself. The dark circles under the eyes faded. The sighs, shrugs, and eye rolls stopped. She got up in the morning. She was laughing. Sometimes she let me hug her.
It was hard to get her phone back before seventh grade, but we had a deal. I wanted to reinforce her good behavior. I made new rules: no social media, no devices in bedrooms, phones off at 8pm. We charged our phones on the kitchen counter. I bought alarm clocks and sound machines. We endured a digital detox. My daughter started soccer. My insomnia has resolved. We joined a gym and worked out together.
But within a few months my daughter relapsed. Little lies. Big lies. Another text came from a friend’s mom with a selfie of our daughters vaping and hanging out with guys I’ve never met at the mall. We arranged another family gathering.
“That may sound crazy,” said my daughter’s stepmother. “But maybe he doesn’t need a phone.
The words were spinning in my head. How come I never thought of that? The phone was destroying my daughter, but I couldn’t imagine life without it. I stayed true to the idea of that, the ideal of that. I took care of the phone again.
My daughter got mad when I told her she lost her phone until middle school. She didn’t want to be that the kid, the only one in the class without his phone. But as the tantrum subsided, she began to come back to herself. Then, within a few weeks, signs of her addictive behavior began to reappear.
I found iPhone chargers in her bedside drawers—to charge her AirPods, she said. She threw her body on the ground to prevent me from searching under her bed. One night as I lay in bed thinking, it hit me. I remembered that she had a daughter two telephones. When I accidentally broke the Mini on the weight machine during our workout, I bought her a new iPhone 13. I picked up the 13, but she could still have the Mini.
“I sold it to a friend at school,” my daughter said when I asked her the next morning. She couldn’t say to whom or for how much.
“I’ll find it,” I said I see you gesture. I was desperate, but I displayed a calm confidence, even a little humor, as I rummaged through her backpack and drawers, patted her pockets, entered her room unannounced, and tried to catch her in the act. My daughter remained calm during my search. I started to think I was completely crazy. I bought a metal detector.
Then one evening I came to her room. My daughter straightened up and threw off the blanket. I rushed to the bed, ran my hands under the covers. Charging cable! My fingers traced his length to the connected phone.
We stared at the Mini lying in my hands. Snapchat glowed beneath the broken screen. She looked at me. Her eyes widened and then filled with tears.
That night, my heart pounded wildly against my pillow as I scrolled through her social media. Her exchanges were desperate with need. She begged people to answer, especially a boy named Damien. When he didn’t respond, she said she was depressed, sexted, sent a picture of her breasts.
I found the answers through my sister in the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, which explores how and why our attention collapses: “The phones we have and the programs that run on them were deliberately designed by the smartest people in the world to best gripped to keep our attention.” Of course. At such a young age, my daughter was defenseless against this manipulation. She assessed her worth in a system where she was simultaneously attention-addicted and starved. It has adopted an algorithm in which provocative content wins: “The more provocative it is, the more engaging it is,” writes Hari.
The social experiment in our house is being replicated in households across the country. As parents, we want our children to be safe. We want them to call us if an active shooter comes on campus. But the biggest danger is lurking within phone, not outside if so.
One of the reasons our kids are so addicted to their phones is because we are addicted to ours. My friends complain about insomnia but can’t imagine leaving their phones out of the bedroom. Dealing with my child’s phone use meant dealing with my own. I have to refrain from texting while driving. I stopped rushing to the charging station every morning to see if I missed a message.
My daughter is at the end of seventh grade that child. Without his phone, he’s the kid who dribbles his soccer ball around the living room, skateboards down the street, does honors, and joins the track team. He is the child whose hands gesture wildly as he chats with his friends, who braids his hair and falls asleep with a book.
These days we use my phone together to coordinate meetings, listen to audiobooks, sing her songs and mine—Shakira and Sade, Ice Cube and the Fugees. Last weekend we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to visit family. The June twilight hugged the shore as my daughter and I surfed the glassy wave that drove us to the shore. “Again!” she said, jumping to her feet. She is addicted to the feeling of the water rolling under her belly.
My daughter is not an only child. I recently met a woman who confiscated her 11-year-old son’s phone when she found out he was sexting. Sick middle school kids are building community and paying attention in class now that school is forcing them to put their phones in the eraser — a trend that’s spreading fast. British children have largely been learning in a “mobile phone-free environment” since the Department for Education’s mandate.
We need both individual and system changes to control our phone usage. I’m curious to see where these changes will take us when my daughter enters high school.
I’ll hold the phone until then.