Latest news with #JonathanHaidt
Pink Villa
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
How Gen Z's made Saiyaara a Phenomenon: An emotional uprising of digital natives
In an era where content scrolls faster than emotions can register, the runaway success of Saiyaara stands as a cultural revelation. With no marquee stars or franchise clout, the film still broke through and became a generational anthem—driven entirely by Gen Z. But to understand this phenomenon, we must look not just at the film but at the psychology of its audience. Saiyaara didn't just entertain—it healed, echoed, and reflected the lived emotional landscape of a digitally native generation raised in what psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls a "phone-based childhood.' Unlike millennials who transitioned into the internet age, Gen Z was born inside it. They are digital natives, fluent in memes, editing tools, and algorithmic cues—but emotionally stunted in the real world. As Haidt notes in The Anxious Generation, this is the first generation to be raised more by screens than by play. Their childhoods have shifted from being 'play-based' to 'phone-based,' a subtle change with profound implications. These young people have access to a wealth of information but a poverty of experience. Hovered over by overprotective parents in the real world, their risk-taking, real-life socializing, and emotional resilience have all been underdeveloped. The result is a generation paradoxically more connected and more isolated than any before it. Saiyaara lands squarely in this gap. At its core, the film is about raw, unfiltered emotion—heartbreak, vulnerability, yearning. It doesn't wink at the audience or wrap its pain in cool irony. It leans into the ache. And for a generation that has grown up emotionally distant—liking stories rather than living them—this sincere storytelling feels like oxygen. Haidt writes that kids today are "desperate for meaning, connection, and safe spaces to feel." Saiyaara offered that. It wasn't just a film; it was an emotional sanctuary. From a behavioural economics perspective, Saiyaara starring Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, activated several key cognitive and emotional triggers. One is contrast bias: in a media landscape cluttered with ironic, hyper-fast, or emotionally shallow content, Saiyaara stood out like a quiet cry in a crowded room. Its sincerity, its stillness, and its melancholic honesty were a jarring contrast to the dopamine-chasing Instagram scroll or the predictable arcs of algorithm-friendly content. Viewers remembered it not because it was loud, but because it hurt—and the brain remembers pain more vividly than pleasure. This emotional stickiness translated seamlessly to virality. Gen Z didn't merely consume the film—they deconstructed it, personalized it, and gave it second life on digital platforms. Here, the IKEA effect comes into play: behavioural economists have found that people value what they help build. Every reel edited, every emotional montage created with Saiyaara's soundtrack, every reaction video posted—these weren't just tributes; they were acts of emotional authorship. Gen Z made the film theirs, and in doing so, gave it cultural immortality. Equally important was identity signalling. In today's social internet, content is a proxy for personality. Sharing a tearjerker moment from Saiyaara, posting a romantic dialogue, or setting its score as a story background was a subtle way of saying, 'I feel deeply. I crave meaning. I believe in love.' These expressions help Gen Z craft online identities that feel more intimate than their guarded offline ones. In a world where performative detachment is the norm, embracing a film like Saiyaara became an act of emotional rebellion. What started as cinema became a mood, a language, and a shared emotional ritual. The music too deserves its due. A deeply melodic and emotionally stirring soundtrack created what can be described as a sensory echo chamber. The score was not just accompaniment—it became a looping emotional trigger. Gen Z stitched these sounds into their digital lives, creating short-form content that repeated and reactivated the film's emotion day after day, week after week. What started as cinema became a mood, a language, and a shared emotional ritual. Crucially, Saiyaara also emerged at a time when Bollywood had abandoned the genre of intense, old-school romance. The industry pivoted to slick thrillers, sanitized rom-coms, or multiverse spectacles—leaving a vacuum of raw love stories. Behavioural economics teaches us that scarcity increases perceived value, and Saiyaara entered this emotional void with full force. It became the only film speaking directly to a silent yearning that other content had ignored. In the end, the success of Saiyaara is not just about box office numbers. It is about resonance. It is about how a film, by daring to be emotionally naked, gave a screen-bound generation permission to feel again. For young people raised to be emotionally cautious, socially anxious, and forever online, Saiyaara was a window into a world of messy, irrational, aching love. A world they had only seen in reels but never lived in real life. And in that window, they saw themselves—not as they are, but as they long to be. In an industry obsessed with IP and scale, Saiyaara is a reminder that emotional truth, when paired with digital fluidity, is the most powerful engine of modern virality.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Anxious Generation' Author Jonathan Haidt Shares New Worries About Kids — and Why You Should Be Concerned (Exclusive)
His book has been a bestseller for more than a year and has prompted smartphone bans in schools across the country, but in a conversation with PEOPLE, Haidt says kids are still in danger When Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation debuted last year, it immediately became a bestseller — and a must-read for many parents navigating an era of pervasive smartphones and social media. Now, more than half of all states have passed laws banning or limiting phone use in schools — 17 states passed legislation just this year — and a new research poll finds that 74% of adults in the U.S. support classroom phone bans. Australia plans to restrict social media to those aged 16 and up starting in December, and several other European countries are also considering age restrictions. In a conversation with PEOPLE, Haidt, 61, a social psychologist and professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, says he's been encouraged by the rapid changes but warns that some changes are better than others. Haidt, who offers resources for parents at and on his Substack, weighs in on criticism of his book, the fears he has for kids, and the looming danger of Artificial Intelligence. PEOPLE: Are you surprised by the success of your book? HAIDT: I knew the book would be successful because whenever I mentioned I was writing it, parents said, "We need this tomorrow, can I see a draft?" But the the speed with which parents are organizing, the speed with which schools are going phone-free. I can't even keep track of it. PEOPLE: As you note, many schools and districts have opted to go phone-free, or ban phones in classrooms in the past year. What's working – and what isn't? HAIDT: The simplest fix, and it costs no money, is phone-free schools. That means when kids come in, they put their phone in a locked pouch, or a locker, and get it back at the end of the day. But many states and schools are doing something that's not very good: They banned phones only during instructional time. They do that because they're afraid of parents who say, 'I have to reach my student all the time.' But when class ends, kids lunge for their phones. And for the first 15 minutes of the next class, they're thinking about the drama going on. Phone bans during class time do nothing to help kids make friends. They do nothing to reduce the mental illness issue. It has to be bell-to-bell. I've never heard of a school that did it all day and regretted it or went back. PEOPLE: Critics of your book say you ignore the possible benefits of screen I recently found a horrifying statistic, which is that 40% of American 2-year-olds have their own iPad. A touchscreen device is not like television. Humans have always raised their children with stories. This is how culture is passed on. A TV screen is a reasonably good way of presenting stories. If your five-year-old watches a 90-minute movie on TV with an older sibling or with you, there's nothing wrong with that. The opposite is iPad time. The kid learns, "Might there be something more interesting if I swipe?" If this starts at age two, your kids lose the ability to pay attention to anything if it's boring for even a moment. By the time kids get to middle school, if they've been swiping and seeing micro stories that aren't really stories, a lot of damage has been done to their ability to pay attention. Us college professors all say the same thing: Kids can't read books anymore. Some of our students say they can't even watch a movie. It's too long. Our attention is being shattered. Let children's frontal cortex develop before you expose them to this. It's damaging an entire generation. And you should never give a child an iPhone as their first phone. You should work your way up. I stand by my rule, no smartphone before high school. PEOPLE: I'd like to talk age bans. Australia recently banned social media for those under Don't call it a ban. We don't say there's an age ban on driving. Just minimum age. There should be a minimum age. PEOPLE: But isn't there validity to the argument that if you keep kids away from social media completely, they're won't develop tools to learn to use it effectively? HAIDT: I hear this argument a lot, but I don't think it's valid psychologically. Our kids are going to be having sex and drinking alcohol, so it is valuable to have classes on that. We should be telling them about dangers. But have you ever heard anyone say, "We need to start them early because they need to know how to do this.' That's ridiculous. These devices, and especially these apps, were designed to hook your child. They were designed with full knowledge of brain development, dopamine circuits, motivation, insecurity. These are predatory programs that prey on children. PEOPLE: One of the biggest criticisms levied against your book is that it doesn't adequately acknowledge the way in which technology has allowed people, and particularly kids who might be isolated or marginalized, to connect and organize. HAIDT: That argument confuses the internet with social media. The internet solved that problem in the '90s. If you're a gay kid in rural Nebraska, life was really hard until the internet came along and suddenly you could get information everywhere. You could find organizations to help. I love the internet. Almost everybody loves the internet. Then in the 2000s, we get one application on the internet, which is a way of linking people together, giving them a newsfeed curated by an algorithm — and the algorithm is giving them whatever it can to keep them hooked. So who do you suppose is most harmed by this? Who do you suppose is most likely to be sextorted ? It's LGBTQ kids. Who do you think is most likely to say "This is harming my mental health?" It's LGBTQ kids. I often hear about the benefits [of social media]. I say, what benefits? Creativity? Have you worked with Gen Z? They can't pay attention. They're making little videos, but not much beyond that. Social media has very few benefits for children. For adults, yes, it's useful for business. I don't have anything to say to people over 18, but children have no need to connect with strangers. Children would be more connected if they put the phone down and got together with their friends. PEOPLE: Speaking of , we're in this moment where it was banned, the ban was rescinded and now we're waiting to hear about a . What are your thoughts about TikTok and what should happen? HAIDT: TikTok is the worst of them all. No one should be on TikTok. It damages your attention and exposes our children to garbage. We did a survey of Gen Z, these were in their late teens, early 20s, 50% of them said they wish TikTok had never been invented. They use it because they have to, but they see their life would be better if it didn't exist. I have very little hope Congress will do anything to protect children. So far, they have a perfect record of never protecting children ever on the Internet. But Australia and the UK are acting, and if their plans move ahead, and if the EU joins them and other countries, platforms are going to have to make it global because they don't want a different Instagram in each country. I'm hoping the rest of the world will fix this problem that America created. PEOPLE: What are your thoughts about how education cuts could affect kids and exacerbate what you're already seeing? HAIDT: Educational ability is declining since 2012, and cuts to funding are not going to help. But the biggest driver of the decline of education is the phones in the pockets and the Chromebooks on the desks. We spent billions of dollars putting a Chromebook or iPad on every desk. We thought this was an equity issue. But it turns out anyone with a computer on their desk can't focus. I teach college students, and MBA students at NYU. Three years ago, I had to go to a no-screens policy because even my graduate students cannot pay attention if they have a computer open. They're all multitasking. Adults can't pay attention, so how the hell do we expect 9-year-olds to pay attention when they have an iPad or a Chromebook on their desk? The best thing we can do for education is first, lock the phones away. Second, get devices off the desks. PEOPLE: At our school, kids have laptops with educational games. As a parent, there's a struggle between thinking more screen time isn't great, but games can be good for As soon as we introduce the technology, scores begin to drop. So we should start with the assumption that these things are not healthy, not helping unless they're proven to help. If you gamify math, the kid will be more engaged. So we think, this is good — but it's not. Suppose you gamify a third of your child's school day. What happens? Gamification is specifically targeted at giving kids a pulse of dopamine, which creates motivation to keep going. Okay, you think, that's good, they're motivated. But the brain adjusts, the dopamine circuits adjust and it now takes more dopamine to get up to normal. So the more you give them gamified educational technology, the harder it's going to be to have their attention to anything that's not on a screen. It's the same dilemma of parents who give their kid an iPad to shut them up. Yes, it will work in the short run, but now you always have to do it because they're not capable of sitting at a restaurant while you're eating. To be clear, there may be a role for some educational technology such as Khan Academy, but the one-to-one devices was the colossal mistake. You should try to avoid schools that will put an iPad or Chromebook on your child's desk. PEOPLE: That's most public schools!HAIDT: That's right. We have to change it. PEOPLE: How do you think AI will change the landscape for social media? HAIDT: In a sense, we've already had the first contact with AI, which was the algorithms. The algorithms made social media much more powerful. Early Facebook was not very addictive. It was just, you check out your friends' pages, they check out yours. But the algorithms, driven by AI, were super intelligent at hooking children with content, especially extreme content. We've already encountered AI and we lost. And our kids have been severely damaged by it. Our technology is becoming our master. This is all before the second wave of AI began with ChatGPT in late 2022, and what AI is already doing is showing that technology is going to become 100 times more powerful as our master. Those of us who feel like we're struggling with our phone addictions, it's going to get 10 times worse. Every app is going to get better and better at giving you what keeps you. Every app is going to get better and better at replacing real life. PEOPLE: What's your big fear with AI for kids? HAIDT: The most frightening thing to me is the AI companions. Our children already are socially deprived. They have poor social skills and they're lonely. This makes them even more likely as targets, as marketing targets for AI friends. But the more AI companions enter their lives, the less room and ability there will be for real friendships. PEOPLE: You talk about the value of giving kids independence. But for letting their kids walk to the store. How can parents foster independence in a world that's wary of it? HAIDT: The first thing is to look at the real world versus the virtual world. In the '90s we thought if our kids were on computers, they were safe, but if they went outside, they'd be abducted. It turns out both of those were not true. Crime rates have dropped tremendously since the '90s. Kidnapping is almost unheard of in the U.S. by strangers. The outside world is much safer than we realized. At the same time, if you let your kids on the Internet and social media, they're going to encounter pornography and strangers who want sex or money from them. We have to change our priorities. Our children have to learn to handle risk. They don't learn that online. Talking with a sex predator online doesn't toughen or benefit them. Going outside and getting lost and finding your way back is a powerful way to strengthen kids. We have to stop fearing the real world and be more afraid of the virtual world. You might be scared to send your eight-year-old six blocks to a grocery store, but what if he does it with his best friend? It's going to be a lot more fun. Everyone's going to be more secure. The more you do this with multiple families working together, the easier it is. Our goal isn't to snatch phones and iPads and screens. Our goal is to restore the fun, healthy, human childhood that most of us had. That's been taken from our kids. It is urgent that we restore it. Our kids are coming up broken. PEOPLE: The book emphasizes the importance of play, especially outdoor free play for kids mental health and development. What options do parents have if their kids are in public schools where the structure of the day, including play time, is limited? HAIDT: Two things that are easy and cost no money. Go to and download the kit for the Let Grow Experience. It gives kids more independence and fun and growth and it's free. So suppose your school has all the third graders do it. They go home, they decide something they can do by themselves. The best ones are where they go out of the house, to a neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar or go to a store. Imagine a town in which all third graders do that. Suddenly no one's afraid because, well, this is homework and the school told us to do it, and everyone else is doing it. Then what happens? Everyone sees eight year olds walking on the sidewalk. Nobody has seen that since 1997. The second program is called Play Club. Many parents are afraid to let their kids out, but they do trust the school playground. So a powerful thing to do is open the playground 30 minutes before class. You need an adult nearby, so that would be a small expense. But kids are desperate for free play and they get so little recess, so if you open the playground at 7:30, a lot of the kids are going to want to come and play soccer, play games, run around. It adds more free play to their day for very little money and it doesn't take away anything else from the school day. And it reduces truancy and lateness —since COVID, a lot of kids just aren't coming to school or they're coming late. PEOPLE: That's one of the things our school does, morning runs for the Wait, what do they do? They go on runs? PEOPLE: It's a track thing. On Monday mornings they can run around the track before Wait, they literally run around? That's it? That's what they do? That's an adult thing. We're so afraid to let go and let them play. They have to have free play. They're desperate for it. It's like if we raised our kids with no vitamin C whatsoever, and they all develop rickets, and then we say, "Well, we'll give you some lotion to put on the scars." No, just give them vitamin C. PEOPLE: Finally, one of your suggestions is connect with other parents with similar mindsets on phones/social media before your kids get to middle school. But you can't always choose who your kid hangs out with. Your phone-free kid may want to hang out with a kid who has a phone. What do you say to parents who feel like they're fighting a losing battle?HAIDT: Encourage your child to bring friends to the house, but there should be a rule that they put phones in a basket by the door. My children experience this. They go to a friend's house and the friend is on the phone all day long. What's the point? But your kid's not going to be damaged by occasionally seeing a smartphone or watching some TikTok videos. Half of American kids are online almost all the basically take themselves out of the game of life. When you give your child a phone, there's a 50% risk that your kid will be in that half. It's not so bad if he spends 10 minutes here and there on his friend's phone, that's not going to destroy his brain. But if he becomes one of the half that is addicted, it will probably cause permanent brain changes. The main thing is to shift from a mindset of threat to a mindset of discovery. Childhood should be about discovery, not fear. When kids are online, it becomes much more about fear. They're anxious. There's constant drama. But if we put them out in the world with other kids, they have fun. And we need to keep our eye on giving our kids fun. Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dr. Jonathan Haidt Is Leading a Parenting Movement—Here's What He Wants You to Know About Technology and Kids' Mental Health
Parents Next Gen winner and author of 'The Anxious Generation,' Dr. Jonathan Haidt, says he's helping parents create stability for their children by reclaiming childhood. In an age dominated by screens, social media, and shrinking childhood freedoms, renowned psychologist and one of Parents' Next Gen winners, Jonathan Haidt, is leading a growing global movement to help parents reclaim their kids' mental health, independence, and joy. With the release of his bestselling 2024 book The Anxious Generation and his activism throughout 2025, Dr. Haidt has emerged as one of the most influential voices in parenting today. Dr. Haidt, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, has spent years researching the mental health crisis among young people. His conclusion? The dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal is closely tied to the early and excessive use of smartphones and social media. Dr. Haidt is on a mission to help kids "break up" with their phones and reclaim mental health, which is why he's a Parents Next Gen winner. Not content with just influencing parents, Dr. Haidt turned to children themselves. He co-authored an interactive graphic novel called The Amazing Generation—a playful guide to help 5th to 8th graders 'break up with their phones' and rediscover the joys of real life, out in December 2025. Parents across the country have embraced it as a tool for opening conversations and creating family screen-time rules collaboratively. Dr. Haidt's influence reached even wider after recently appearing with Michelle Obama on her podcast. Together, they tackled one of today's thorniest parenting issues: how to set boundaries in a tech-driven world. 'Understand that your children are not your friends,' Obama emphasized, echoing Dr. Haidt's call for strong, deliberate parenting. The episode prompted an explosion of online dialogue and further fueled the movement of parents supporting each other in creating healthier home environments. Dr. Haidt spoke exclusively to Parents. What motivates you to do the work that you do? What motivates me? Gosh, so many different motivations. It started as just scientific curiosity about why the mental health stats suddenly got so horrible in 2012. What happened? Then it moved on to be, 'This is the biggest problem I have ever seen. This is actually changing an entire generation of human beings.' So now it's become really more of a Anxious Generation we are helping families and organizations around the world to make change. It's become so many different motivations, but it's been really thrilling because almost everyone wants to change this. How are you raising your children to be changemakers? I'm raising my kids, first, to be independent. I haven't really thought about making them changemakers per se. My daughter's 15, my son is 18, and we focused on just giving them more independence than we were ready for, like pushing ourselves to listen to Lenore Skenazy, who advocates for free-range we focused on just letting them out more in New York City, letting them navigate, letting them do errands. Now my kids, they go all over the city on city bikes. They're confident. So I've just been focusing on getting them to fly and then they'll find their way in the world. It seems like devices can be particularly threatening to boys' outlook and sense of self. How can we raise young boys to thrive and not just survive? Well, the most important thing for raising boys is that they have to have thousands or millions of real-world experiences, some of which involve risk and our kids, our boys, are having thousands or millions of video games. And it's not just the video games. It's the porn. It's the vaping. It's so many online activities. So, we've got to delay boys descending into video games and got to send them out into the world to play and have adventures, even though that's kind of scary for us. We have to overcome our own fears and give our boys the kind of childhoods that their fathers or grandfathers had, at least to the extent that we can. What would you say to parents who have an issue with delaying—they have a teen who is feeling excluded and wants social media? Let's say we're first on the smartphone. You can give your kid a non-smartphone. It's fine to have your kid be in contact with their friends. But just try to hold out on a smartphone because that's a gambling casino and pornography, and everything else in their pocket. On social media, it can be harder. If your kid has one other friend who isn't on social media, it's a lot easier than if every single friend is on social media. And finally, just educate yourself about social media. On my Substack we have posts giving quotations from employees at Snapchat and TikTok. And if you know what they know, you wouldn't let your kids on TikTok and Snapchat. So it's hard. My daughter is 15. I've not let her have any social media and I am imposing a cost on her in the short run. But in the long run, I think I have a happier daughter who is going to flourish and fly the nest. What would be your word of advice for parents? We all feel anxious about letting our kids out, letting them out of our control, letting them out of our view. But we have to do what's best for the kids, not what's best for our own feelings. And we have to overcome our anxiety if we want to give our kids a chance of overcoming their anxiety. We have to let them grow up, take small risks by themselves without us there, to discover that they can do it. It can be as simple as sending your kid into a grocery store. If you have a seven-year-old child who's been shopping with you 50 or 100 times, knows how to do it, you say, 'Here's some money, go get a quart of milk. I'll wait here in the parking lot,' or 'I'll wait at the front of the store.' Just start small, and you will be anxious that first time, but your kid is going to be jumping up and down with excitement that you gave them this chance to do something. We all need to feel useful, and our kids have to feel useful, so let them do useful things. That's how they'll grow up. One last question, because you gave so many hopeful ideas there. Do you have any specific advice for dads? So my advice to dads is that while moms have been sort of leading the movement to push back on smartphones, the other half of this is you have to give your kids an exciting, real-world childhood, which includes thrills and risk-taking and running around and wrestling. And this is where dads excel. Dad is the one who's going to pretend to be a predator stalking the child and pretending to be a big, scary monster. That sort of stuff is incredibly healthy for kids. Dad's the one who's going to be throwing them up in the air. That mix of fear and excitement with safety is the most powerful thing you can give your kids to overcome their own anxieties and become a force in the world. Dads are uniquely qualified, or I should just say on average, they enjoy it more, and they tend to gravitate to that role. So this is where I think dads are really really crucial. Read the original article on Parents Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Art or algorithms? A choice for America's children
While America fixates on wars in Israel and Ukraine, protests over deportations and fights over tariffs, a quieter crisis is destroying our children from within. Nearly one-third of U.S. children show signs of addictive behavior tied to mobile phones and social media by age 11. Those with the highest levels of compulsive use are more than twice as likely to report suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety or aggression. This isn't speculation — it's the stark finding from a new study that should terrify every parent in America. Children who feel they can't put the phone down are literally losing hope. And while our attention stays locked on external battles and street demonstrations, we are about to defund the one proven antidote to digital despair: arts education. The research, as reported by the Financial Times, amplifies the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose book ' The Anxious Generation ' exposed how smartphones are damaging developing minds. The rise in teen anxiety, depression and self-harm isn't a coincidence — it tracks directly with the spread of smartphones and social media. Haidt's call to action is clear: Give kids their childhoods back by changing our digital norms. But here's what the policy debate is missing: When I was chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts, we commissioned a study from McKinsey in 1997 titled, 'You Gotta Have Art!' It found that for every dollar received in public grants, arts organizations raise $9 from other sources. In other words, taxpayers get tremendous bang for their buck spent on arts education. And art isn't a luxury. It's a lifeline. In low-income and underserved communities — where kids face the highest risk of social media addiction and have the least access to mental health support — arts programs provide what algorithms cannot: structure, purpose and human connection. They teach discipline and self-expression. They offer sanctuary from the scroll. They give children the chance to discover who they are beyond the screen. I've witnessed this transformation firsthand for decades. In my role as chairman, I've visited VFW halls turned into rehearsal spaces, summer camps that became studios, shuttered churches reopened as community theaters. These places don't need TikTok — they need teachers, canvases, clarinets and courage. Without National Endowment for the Arts support, they vanish. Not hypothetically — now. In Iowa, the beloved nonprofit cinema FilmScene just lost its entire National Endowment for the Arts grant overnight. There was no warning — just a cold, bureaucratic phrase: 'no longer prioritized by the president.' That funding supported programming for people with disabilities, local festivals and community outreach. Without it, a cultural pillar could collapse. FilmScene isn't alone. Today, students in high-poverty schools are twice as likely to have no arts education at all. This isn't just unfair — it's strategically stupid. Data show low-income students engaged in arts are twice as likely to graduate college. Arts education creates a pipeline to success and a buffer against isolation and algorithmic manipulation. So why cut it? Because critics call it elitist? Here's the truth: Cutting arts funding doesn't hurt elites. It devastates kids who have nothing else. Lincoln Center will survive. The after-school jazz program in East St. Louis will not. The community mural project in West Texas will not. In 1997, conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) tried to kill the National Endowment for the Arts — until fellow Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) stood up and said no. D'Amato cited hard data and made the case that arts funding wasn't liberal indulgence but conservative common sense. President Trump should follow that model. He should not only preserve the National Endowment for the Arts, but he should reform it to serve communities most in need. As he did at the Kennedy Center, he can appoint leadership reflecting traditional values — faith, discipline, patriotism, family — and repurpose the NEA to rescue children from digital despair. This transcends politics. It is about right and wrong. Arts aren't the enemy of conservative values — they are the antidote to a society forgetting how to raise whole human beings. They teach perseverance, honor tradition and create bonds no app can replicate. We face a simple choice: algorithm or art. One isolates. The other inspires. One extracts attention. The other expands minds. One sells. The other saves. For our children, our communities and our country, let's choose art.
Irish Examiner
15-07-2025
- General
- Irish Examiner
Colman Noctor: Should parents allow their kids to take more risks and foster independence from a young age?
Like many latchkey children of my generation, I was granted considerable independence to explore our community. By the age of nine, I would cycle from my house to the local village 3km away to play with friends. During school holidays, there were days when my friends and I set off on our bikes 'Goonies-style' up the mountains for an adventure. I don't recall telling my parents where we were going or what our plans entailed — we simply went wherever the road led us. Looking back as a parent, I am horrified at the potential dangers my friends and I faced, such as crossing rickety, broken bridges in a disused quarry, all in the name of adventure. But paradoxically, I believe these childhood risky experiences had a profound impact on who I am today. Despite my confidence in the benefits those experiences gave me, I don't grant my children nearly as much freedom or independence. With much more traffic, it is understandable that parents are cautious about letting their children cycle on local roads. Additionally, our communities are now much more fragmented. When I was a child heading off on my BMX, I knew almost everyone in my locality, so I was never far from someone I could ask for help. Furthermore, if I were up to no good, no doubt my mother would have known before I got home. Essentially, many sets of eyes were watching over me, supporting the 'raised by the village' idea that has now almost disappeared from society. I would have far less confidence in my community today, looking out for our children, because people are so busy, or simply because they do not have the same level of community connectedness as before. Social psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff coined the term 'safetyism' in their book The Coddling of the American Mind, describing it as a cultural trend that prioritises safety over other values, such as resilience and freedom. Haidt and Lukianoff argue that this ideology has serious implications for education, parenting, public policy, and democracy. Although safety is unquestionably important, they warn that overemphasising it can produce unintended effects that leave children less prepared to face life's challenges. As someone who advocates for psychological safety and child protection, I sometimes worry about how, in the pursuit of safety, we might inadvertently create other issues. Removal of all possible risks In societies dominated by safetyism, institutions tend to develop policies aimed at removing all possible risks, whether real or imagined. For instance, some school playgrounds have a 'no running' rule to prevent children from falling and injuring themselves. Before implementing such policies, we must first carry out a cost-benefit analysis and consider what may be lost. Adding a 'no running' rule in the school playground could lower the number of falls and injuries. However, it will also have unintended effects, such as limiting children's ability to express themselves freely and hindering their physical and social development. Thinking about what may be lost in our pursuit of safety is especially relevant today, and it is something we must keep in mind when making these decisions. Over recent decades, parents have increasingly aimed to shield their children from danger. The rise of 'helicopter parenting' and 'snowplough parenting' has fostered an environment where children have fewer chances to build independence and resilience. With the best intentions, parents often micromanage their children's experiences, ensuring they are never left unsupervised, that playgrounds are free from potential hazards, and that conflicts with peers are promptly mediated by adults rather than left to the children to resolve themselves. One of the main reasons parents cite for giving their young children a smartphone is that it provides surveillance and tracking. This kind of overprotection can have unintended effects. Studies show that children who are not given opportunities to take small, manageable risks are more likely to develop anxiety and encounter difficulties with problem-solving later in life. A 2022 study, for example, by neuropsychologist Jacintha Tieskens and colleagues published in the Brain and Behaviour journal explored the link between risk-taking and anxiety in children aged eight to 12. They found that those who consistently avoid risk-taking may be more prone to developing anxiety disorders. So, why do parents who grew up in the free-range 1970s and '80s, myself included, seem so risk-averse when it comes to granting their children the same liberties? One reason for limiting children's independence is the fear of abduction, accidents, or even emotional distress, which has caused many parents to restrict their children's ability to roam freely or play unsupervised. However, despite notable declines in crime rates across many Western countries since the 1990s, concerns about danger are increasing. In an Irish context, the Irish Crime and Victimisation Survey (ICVS) has consistently shown that public perceptions of crime do not match actual crime rates. For example, a 2022 CSO survey found that some 45% of respondents believed crime was increasing, even though crime rates have fallen. Many of today's Irish parents grew up amid the shocking revelations surrounding child sex abuse by clerics in the 1990s and 2000s, emphasising the need for greater focus on child protection. Furthermore, multiple child sex-abuse scandals within scouting organisations, swimming clubs, and residential schools featured in the news for over a decade. Then came the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann from a Portuguese holiday apartment in 2007. The tragedy is imprinted in the minds of many who watched the story unfold in real time across global media, reinforcing their focus on child safety. The concern of parents is understandable. Nevertheless, the paradox of safetyism is that by attempting to eliminate all risks, we might reduce young people's ability to cope with adversity in the long run. Instead of dismissing safety as unimportant, we need to recognise that resilience and personal growth often develop through confronting challenges rather than avoiding them. Parents should allow children to take sensible risks, like playing independently, managing conflicts without immediate adult interference, and seeing failure as a chance to learn. However, it's not just parents who need to encourage more risk-taking in children. Policymakers should recognise the trade-offs involved in increasing safety measures for young people, including the long-term social, economic, and psychological costs. A society that aims to eliminate all risks may ultimately produce a less adaptable and more fearful population. When sociocultural narratives are based on perception and not fact, it can result in 'worst-case scenario assumptions', such as presuming that all teenagers engage in anti-social behaviour, thereby making them feel unwelcome in public spaces. While it is undoubtedly true that teens can be troublesome, the vast majority are not. Categorising them all in the same way profoundly limits their opportunities for freedom and independence within communities. As societies strive to find the delicate balance between protection and resilience, it is crucial to remember that safety does not come from eliminating every risk a child might encounter, but from developing their strength and resources to manage those risks effectively. Positive risk-taking Recognising that positive risk-taking is necessary, this summer, I am making a concerted effort to give my 15-, 12-, and 10-year-old children more opportunities for independence in the real world. This involves letting them go into shops on their own, encouraging them to use public transport, hang out with friends unsupervised, and prepare their own meals. Despite feeling anxious about allowing my children more independence and increasing their level of risk, I have to remind myself that fostering independence is essential for their emotional, cognitive, and social development. By providing developmentally appropriate opportunities for independence, they can build confidence, resilience, decision-making skills, and a sense of responsibility — critical attributes for successful adulthood. Independence must be encouraged within safe boundaries and tailored to each child's maturity level. Overloading a child with responsibility beyond their capabilities can lead to anxiety or failure. Conversely, overprotection may hinder their ability to cope with future challenges. This is not an easy balance to achieve. At the start of the summer, I committed to offering my children developmentally appropriate opportunities for independence to help them develop essential life skills. My plans were tested when a shooting incident happened at our local shopping centre in Carlow a few weeks ago. I could have easily justified restricting my children's freedom and independence. However, just as I cannot set policies based solely on the last disaster, I also cannot base my decisions solely on worst-case scenarios. In the spirit of incremental independence, I intend to increase the challenges as they show ability and responsibility. I may need to reconsider meal preparation, though, as I've already had to replace two pots after they burned the rice and pasta. Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist Read More Colman Noctor: Watching TV with your child can be educational for you both
