I hate to say I'm not going to read something but I don't think I want to read this book. I don't believe there's anything new and interesting in it for me. To the contrary, I suspect it will make me angry.
The greatest harm that a screen does to a child is that the parent is staring at it instead of looking at the child. But nobody is willing to say that because it's easier to format children than to convince adults to exhibit some self-discipline. Parents are the people who will buy the book, and Haidt can't afford to antagonize them.
The narrative of "evil companies who hooked kids on purpose" is weak sauce and boring. We've heard all this before with Coca Cola, Barbie dolls (before they were rebranded as good for you), junk food, etc. Of course, companies want people hooked on their wares. Their responsibility is to their shareholders. They definitely can't be expected to have a greater responsibility to children than those children's parents.
This problem gets solved the moment the parents put the phones away when interacting with their children. That's it. That's all that's needed. Don't hold the bloody things in your hand - turned on or off, doesn't matter - around children. These kids are miserable not because somebody said something on Snapchat but because Mom hasn't had an uninterrupted day with them during their whole lives. Snapchat is horrible, definitely. But it's not Snapchat that's doing the damage. It's the distracted, absent parent who interrupts every conversation with the child to stare at a little plastic rectangle. I'd like to read about that but it doesn't look like anybody will have the guts. Or the readers if they do.
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