Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety

如果青少年心理健康危機的起因根本不是社群媒體呢？

你最後一次真正看到一班孩子——在沒有大人的陪同下——在遊樂場玩耍是什麼時候？四十年前，一個十歲的美國孩子可以步行上學、騎自行車去朋友家，或者和社區裡的其他孩子一起玩即興遊戲。如今，我們的孩子在任何機會下都受到監視和控制。

正如作家、研究員兼心理學教授彼得·格雷（Peter Gray）在《恢復童年》（Restoring Childhood）中所揭示的，孩子們並非因為社群媒體而感到抑鬱和焦慮。他們退縮到社群媒體，在很大程度上是因為他們在現實世界中缺乏能動性（agency）與自主權。相反地，使用社群媒體往往是更大問題的症狀：童年作為一個純粹用於嘗試、玩耍 and 學習靠自己做事的生命階段正在消失。如果我們繼續收緊束縛孩子的韁繩，再多的螢幕時間限制也無法扭轉我們看到孩子們今天所承受的令人憂慮的心理健康危機。

《恢復童年》是對某些社會趨勢（從全天候的新聞報導、對汽車的日益依賴、共同核心標準的引進，到不斷加劇的財富不平等）如何共同創造一個基本上對兒童不友善的環境的徹底剖析。格雷主張，如果我們想培養出心理健康且具備韌性的孩子，我們就必須將童年還給孩子。我們必須在個人和集體層面上，優先考慮無大人看管的玩耍，並在我們的學校、社區以及作為父母的角色中為其爭取時間。

What if the cause of the youth mental health crisis wasn’t social media at all?

When was the last time you actually saw a group of kids—without adults—playing on a playground? Forty years ago, an American ten-year-old could expect to walk to school, bike to a friend’s, or play pick-up games with other kids in the neighborhood. Today, our children are supervised and controlled at every opportunity.

As author, researcher, and psychology professor Peter Gray shows in Restoring Childhood, kids aren’t depressed and anxious because of social media. They’re retreating to social media in large part because they lack agency and autonomy in the real world. Social media use is instead often a symptom of the larger problem: the disappearance of childhood as a stage of life solely for experimentation, play, and learning you can do things on your own. And if we continue to tighten the leash on our kids, no amount of screen-time restriction will reverse the alarming mental health crisis we see our kids enduring today.

Restoring Childhood is a radical examination of how certain societal trends—from round-the-clock news coverage, to increasing reliance on cars, to the introduction of Common Core, to growing wealth inequality—conspired to create a fundamentally anti-child environment. If we want to raise mentally healthy and resilient kids, Gray argues, we must restore childhood to children. We must, individually and collectively, prioritize adult-free play, and the time for it—in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and as parents.