Op-Ed: A digitally enslaved generation cries for independence

July 8, 2025  |  By A.M. Derrendinger

As is generally accepted, the norm today is that everyone my age has a smartphone and social media. What is not generally known is just how harmful these things are, especially to the underdeveloped, impressionable mind of the adolescent.

Right off the bat, I’m going to deny the necessity of even having a personal internet-connected electronic device as a 14-year-old myself. Of course, people may reasonably argue that a phone will be needed for communication purposes, but even a good old-fashioned landline, or in exceptional cases, a flip- or talk-and-text phone can satisfy that demand.

But besides this, I find that everything that is a part of growing up -- such as finding community, building social connections, seeking entertainment, and accessing resources, academic or otherwise -- is better carried out without using a smartphone. 

In accepting smartphones and social media into our daily lives, we are replacing real life with a short-changing deal. Big Tech companies get the cash, and aside from supposed benefits, what do smart device consumers and social media consumers really get?

Adults tell me all the time how addictive merely scrolling on a screen is for them. So, how much self-control are teens my age, and children much younger, supposed to have? And not just while endlessly scrolling, but in being exposed to social media platforms that are algorithmically designed to learn about each individual adolescent user and the best ways to keep them hooked, and then set up a brilliantly designed, highly addictive content feed that the human brain is no match for in resisting?

It simply isn’t fair. Parents ask too much of their kids to be able to regulate themselves when handed such powerfully addictive forces. 

Usage will inevitably result in a huge derailment of human functioning. Merely using a cell phone, social media aside, causes side effects such as poor mental, physical and emotional health, and of course, the perilous combination of driving and texting. Essentially, a smartphone is danger itself neatly packaged in one glowing rectangular device, and currently, it is normalized to receive it at ages younger than five. What a birthday gift!

But if smartphones, figuratively speaking, are the frying pan, then social media must be considered the fire. 

A list of harms of social media includes the causation of anxiety, depression, loneliness, eating disorders, access to online predators and drug dealers, sextortion and child sex abuse material, cyberbullying, and self-harm and suicide content. The way I see it, the idea of even possessing a device capable of providing access to such harm is unacceptable. But why, then, are so many kids, of all ages through 18, being forced to put up with it, to damaging results, on such a large scale?

So-called safeguards and moderation of use are ineffective as these products are designed to be addictive. This situation can be compared to that of smoking: you wouldn’t give someone a cigarette because it has minimal benefits like relaxation, and has a filter, and then tell them to resist the addictiveness of nicotine by using it in moderation.

My peers never asked for a defective tool to make their lives miserable and unsuccessful. When other children ask their parents for a phone, they are really asking to not be left out, which is normal and reasonable. But on what planet is it okay to “be included” at the cost of so much harm? It simply isn’t worth it. The price is ruining, and even terminating children’s lives. 

When I think of what decision my parents made in raising me that I’m most grateful for, what always comes to mind as largely significant is that they have given me a screen and social media-free childhood. If screens were a big part of my life, they would eventually replace everything else important to me- playing music, running, caring for my goats, reading, being with family and friends, and even just having idle downtime- all of which are important aspects of childhood for every kid, and really don’t leave any space for attention and time hogging screens. 

Again, we don’t need smartphones and social media, no matter how much Big Tech wants us to believe otherwise. Submitting because of the pressure to “fit in” means that my peers are being compromised to satisfy industrial greed. 

When has “It’s too hard for me to forgo for x,y, and z reasons” been the right response to anything that we know is dangerous? Adults, with all due respect, please be responsible. Don’t wait until your own child has been harmed to take action. 

It’s been discouraging to watch so many of my peers buy into the shiny new promise of “digital is better.” My friends dismiss my entreaties for them not to pick the poisoned apple by saying, “We’re all growing up in a digital world anyway. In our time, how can you live without a phone?” Much better than with one, I can tell you that. Then they tell me, “If you don’t have a phone, you’re behind.”

Behind?    

No. Not behind, but not a part of the unhealthy norm. One after the other, I watch my peers join the crowd, all marching toward the glowing screen of an iPhone for a horizon. It beckons to them like some sort of masked beacon of doom. They know no better. They march on, fixated and drawn by the intoxicating glow, and can’t slow down as they walk towards the cliff that some are actively falling off of. It’s a sad sight. In fact, it’s not only grievous but horrifying how readily they are allowed to follow along. 

Not many stay “behind” with me, and I see the consequences daily. My peers with phones and/or social media are often visibly shallower of mind, and less inclined to be interested in aspects of real life. It gets harder and harder to find other kids who are interested in much else. No one wants to discuss Dickens’ works, and not surprisingly. Not many kids are left who voluntarily read such literature anymore, if anything, but graphic novels at all.

Clearly this is an urgent matter. Normal- by definition, healthy childhood should be given back to kids. All it takes is the resolution to push back against the lie of the necessity of ever needing a screen-based lifestyle at any age that Big Tech is successfully selling to the masses and wants us to believe.

The ideal alternative to a screen-based childhood is as described in the Vermont Declaration of Digital Independence, although even “dumb” phones are not a necessary accessory for many. 

To conclude, a screen and social media-free childhood should not be considered a privilege that is impossible to accomplish because it means challenging the norm. It is very possible and crucial to the lives of my generation to take this step. For the sake of my peers, I hope that together as a community we can take the right steps towards making childhood what it used to be: safe, supportive, and screen-independent.  

Agnes Derrendinger of Middletown Springs just finished 8th grade at Upper Valley Waldorf School in Quechee.