Where Did The Play Go?

By Graham McBride, LPC-A, NCC

Do you remember what it was like to be a kid?

For me, it looked like hours spent in the woods behind my house, playing in the creek. Walking to the playground at the nearby elementary school together with zero adult supervision at all and no phones to make sure that we were okay.

For many kids today, their experience is quite different.

As a counselor, almost every conversation that I have with my clients and their caregivers comes back to the way that devices have upended the experience of childhood and adolescence in America. Kids bemoan the fact that their parents do not let them do anything outside of the home but also are constantly “on them” about their device use. Caregivers are at a loss as to what to do with the zombie that their child becomes when engaged with the devices that are intentionally designed to be addicting.

For those of us that work with this population, we cannot afford to be uninformed or uninvested in the effects that devices are having on the young people that we work with. In this article, I want to highlight the findings from researchers like Jonathan Haidt as well as my own anecdotal experience from working with children and teenagers on how devices are wreaking havoc on a healthy, developmentally-rich childhood and teenage experience for American youth.

Graham McBride, LPC-A, NCC

Where Did The Play Go?

Play is an essential part of not just what makes us human, but what has enabled us to be successful as a species. Jonathan Haidt says, “our planet-changing trait was the ability to learn from each other and tap into the common pool of knowledge our ancestors and community had stored - human childhood extended to give children time to learn.”

Children today have significantly less access to what researchers call “free play”, which is defined as “activity that is freely chosen and directed by the participants and undertaken for its own sake, not consciously pursued to achieved ends that are distinct from the activity itself” (Peter Gray). For young people, the healthiest form of play is physical, outdoors, and with other children of mixed ages. Video games and social media largely encourage all of the opposite types of engagement: directed (not freely chosen nor directed by the participants), are partaken for the purpose of earning a score or gaining likes, comments, and followers, are largely engaged with indoors, require no physical movement, and often are done in isolation from others.

Kids and teens need free play because it fosters attunement, which as counselors we know to be the “a nonverbal process of being with another person in a way that attends fully and responsively to that person” (Odelya Gertel Kraybill Ph.D.). Device play does not require this and often disrupts this process due to constant notifications and the addictive operating systems that are hardwired for distraction.

Humans have evolved to learn from one another and, for children, we have always done this through play. When young people do not have a chance to play, they are robbed of the opportunity to learn in the way that humans have always learned. And we are beginning to see the results. Recent research from Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath tells us that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized academic tests than their predecessors.

We have a real problem on our hands.

Are Devices Really To Blame?

There is a lot of debate over the degree to which devices have disrupted childhood and adolescence, but researchers like Jonathan Haidt are becoming increasingly convinced that devices and social media are the culprit.

There is no other explanation for the upward trends in psychiatric visits amongst young people, which were present not just in the United States but in all of the other Anglosphere countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom) as well as the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). All of these trends begin around 2012, which was the last year that smartphone users were in the minority. The mass adoption of this revolutionary technology seems to have been a wrecking ball to what has been a “normal childhood” for all of human history.

In 2022, studies found that 46% of teens said that they were online “almost constantly”. The research suggests that students between the ages of 13-18 spend 6-8 hours per day on screen-based leisure activities. When taken into consideration with the CDC recommendation of 8-10 hours of sleep per night for teens and 10-12 hours of sleep for children and combined with the typical 7-9 hour school day, we find that the average teenager is spending almost every waking moment outside of school with their device. And that is assuming that they are getting enough sleep and that their schools are finding ways to be successful in keeping these addicting devices out of their hands - neither of which is likely.

Introducing “Safetyism”

All of these changes would be detrimental enough, but when combined with what researchers call “safetyism”, the problems only compound. “Safetyism” is a concept in which safety is treated as a sacred value. Beginning in the early 1990s, due to widespread media coverage of isolated incidents connected to the kidnappings of children and teenagers, the well-documented decline in communal trust in America, amongst other factors, more and more caregivers felt less and less comfortable with their children playing out and about. There is a pervading belief that the world is unsafe and that children must be protected from it.

The problem with this is that it is not supported by science. Hospital admissions for unintentional injuries and fall-related fractures have declined significantly since 2000. Kidnappings of children have also dropped since the 1990s. But even with these statistics in mind, the reality is that the world is inherently dangerous. It always has been and always will be. We do our children and teenagers a disservice when we shield them from exploring these dangers in developmentally appropriate contexts. Their healthy development depends on learning how to problem solve, navigate conflict, self-soothe, and persevere through challenges and discomfort.

Four Major Areas of Concern

In his book, “Anxious Generation”, Jonathan Haidt identifies four major areas of concern when it comes to the way that devices impact children and teens: sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, social deprivation, and addiction.

Research has found that there is a correlation between high social media use and poor sleep. And when we do not get sufficient sleep, researchers have found that we are at greater risk of both internalizing behaviors, such as depression, and externalizing behaviors, such as aggression. When it comes to attention, research tells us that young people who engaged with social media in a problematic or addictive manner at one measurement time had higher levels of ADHD at the next measurement time.

And in terms of social deprivation, one study found that when someone pulls out a phone mid-conversation or even if a phone is simply visible, the quality and intimacy of a social interaction is reduced. And, as mentioned from my clinical experience, anyone working with kids and teens that have devices have encountered the signs of addiction in the most seriously device-attached young people: withdrawal symptoms when separated, disconnection in their relationships, a near-total loss of identity apart from their device and the activities therein.

How Counselors Can Respond

As counselors, we have a responsibility to be intentional about addressing the way that these devices are harming those that we work with, just as we would any other addiction or maladaptive behavior.

We must first do our part by educating children, teenagers, and their caregivers of the effects of device use. Technology companies are working hard to ensure that the truth does not get out. Our clients have a right to know what the research has found to be true: that teens who spend more time using social media are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other disorders.

We also must advocate for policy changes in the contexts where we have influence: by informing educational leadership of the importance of device-free educational environments, by giving caregivers frameworks for healthy device use in the home context (such as never allowing devices in a bedroom, including charging devices elsewhere, putting devices “to bed” an hour before sleep, and ensuring that they know how to use parental controls on their young person’s device), and by ensuring that our government officials know just how important this issue is and demanding that policies be put in place to protect our young people.

From there, we must also be mindful of how we model device use. Do we put our phone away in our office so as to not let it affect our work with our clients? Do we take extended breaks (even an entire day a week) to let our default mode network do the work that it needs to do so that our minds and nervous systems can properly reset? Do we get enough sleep so that we can be more fully present with those who have trusted us to care for them?

This issue can feel overwhelming because of just how thoroughly devices and social media have taken over our lives. But we do have agency and we can take back the life that has been slowly eroded away. As we do, I think we will find that we will mourn the life that we missed by staring into screens for so many years.

And as we do, we can help our clients and their caregivers do the same so that they can connect with and more fully experience a world that has so much to offer that a screen can never offer.

Author Biography

Graham McBride is a therapist with a passion for helping people love themselves and others more. Alongside his clinical work, he is a musician and fitness enthusiast who enjoys exploring the connections between creativity, discipline, and personal well-being. When he’s not working or training, Graham can usually be found watching great films.