{"id":57126,"date":"2024-08-17T10:43:43","date_gmt":"2024-08-17T00:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/maintenance.html\/?p=57126"},"modified":"2024-08-17T10:43:43","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T00:43:43","slug":"10-teens-gave-up-smartphones-for-a-month-heres-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=57126","title":{"rendered":"10 Teens gave up smartphones for a month. Here\u2019s what happened."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-57127\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Phone_Detox.png\" alt=\"Phone Detox\" width=\"618\" height=\"323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Phone_Detox.png 618w, https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Phone_Detox-300x157.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In a bold experiment that addresses the growing concerns about smartphone addiction and teen mental health, British journalist Decca Aitkenhead challenged her two teenage sons and eight of their friends to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/life-style\/parenting\/article\/what-happened-when-i-made-my-sons-and-their-friends-go-without-smartphones-vpcnbj58d\">go without smartphones<\/a>\u00a0for a month.<\/p>\n<p>The results, published this month in the U.K.\u2019s Sunday Times Magazine, offer a compelling glimpse into how digital detox can transform young lives \u2014 and potentially address what author<a href=\"https:\/\/jonathanhaidt.com\/bio\/\">\u00a0Jonathan Haidt, Ph.D.<\/a>, calls the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.anxiousgeneration.com\/\">anxious generation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aitkenhead\u2019s experiment, inspired by Haidt\u2019s research on teen mental\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/childrenshealthdefense.org\/defender_category\/health-conditions\/\">health trends<\/a>, didn\u2019t just take away\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/childrenshealthdefense.org\/defender\/cellphone-radiofrequency-radiation-cheek-cells-death-cancer-study\/\">cellphones<\/a>. It culminated in an unsupervised camping trip that pushed boundaries of independence rarely seen in today\u2019s overprotective parenting culture.<\/p>\n<p>The outcomes surprised the teens and adults involved, and revealed unexpected resilience and joy in disconnecting from electronics, according to Aitkenhead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really glad I did it,\u201d one participant told Aitkenhead. \u201cIt was way better than I expected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nexusnewsfeed.com\/article\/health-healing\/10-teens-gave-up-smartphones-for-a-month-here-s-what-happened\/\">https:\/\/nexusnewsfeed.com\/article\/health-healing\/10-teens-gave-up-smartphones-for-a-month-here-s-what-happened\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a bold experiment that addresses the growing concerns about smartphone addiction and teen mental health, British journalist Decca Aitkenhead challenged her two teenage sons and eight of their friends to\u00a0go without smartphones\u00a0for a month. The results, published this month in the U.K.\u2019s Sunday Times Magazine, offer a compelling glimpse into how digital detox can &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=57126\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;10 Teens gave up smartphones for a month. Here\u2019s what happened.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-health-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57128,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57126\/revisions\/57128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}