What if social media isn’t hurting kids?

Jonathan Haidt’s argument that smartphones and social media are a primary driver of worsening teen mental health has become a prominent touchstone in the debate over children and technology since his bestselling book appeared two years ago. The thesis has reached beyond academic circles, influencing policymakers and activists and becoming a reference point for parents and officials considering restrictions on youth access to online platforms.

A sustained critique of Haidt’s claims has emerged from fellow researchers. Candice Odgers, a leading adolescent mental health scholar, published a strong critique in Nature, and other experts interviewed by The Atlantic expressed concern that Haidt overstates correlations and implies causation where it has not been proven. Now Peter Gray, a psychology researcher and former colleague of Haidt’s, has written Restoring Childhood to present a different account of why teen mental health worsened.

Gray argues the long-term erosion of children’s autonomy and the rise of more rigid schooling practices — including pressures linked to the Common Core — better explain population-level declines in adolescent wellbeing. He contends that a brief improvement in youth mental health around the 1990s and early 2000s aligns with wider home internet adoption, which he says restored some freedoms and peer connection. Gray also points to research that finds little meaningful correlation between time on social media and mental health, and cites studies suggesting smartphones can increase offline social interaction among younger teens.

The two researchers agree that reduced unsupervised play and greater constraints on kids since the 1980s have harmed resilience, and they once cooperated on Let Grow, an organization formed in 2017 to promote greater childhood independence. They have since diverged sharply over the internet’s role: Gray resigned from Let Grow after Haidt’s book and now warns that social media bans risk hurting children and may be ineffective because kids can circumvent them. He supports targeted measures like school phone rules and age verification for adult content, while urging parents to teach children how to use platforms rather than treating them as incapable of judgement. The debate has practical consequences for parents, educators and lawmakers deciding whether restrictions or different reforms best address youth mental health.