Is Jonathan Haidt right about smartphones?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/high-school-english-te...

"Ford says he has missed some other obvious contributing factors in the UK data, including closures of youth clubs and other safe spaces for young people, the world becoming more expensive and difficult to navigate, social changes with looser community bonds and more."

Is there a connection between the closures of youth clubs and other safe spaces for young people? I might imagine that more youth on phones, means less youth wanting to go to youth clubs, means less demand for youth clubs, means youth clubs and safe spaces closing.

Won't argue with the view that poverty is bad.

I would be interested in seeing actually self-report survey data on how people wish they were spending their time. Like how many hours a week using your phones vs going to the movies, socializing with friends, etc. Part of the problem is the rise of phones and social media is self-perpetuating. The more people stay home to browse tik tok, the less people go out and spend at the movies or bars, therefor the less of those third places that exist, therefor the more folks that stay home and browse tik tok (or Netflix or whatever, I wonder if Haidt includes streaming in his diagnosis)

They talk about phone addiction and whether or not people are addicted to their phones, but I think I would add a new measure. Addiction is generally defined as causing negative impacts to their life.

“For most of us, we are [not addicted to our phones] - we are distracted by our phones…[Addiction is when] you’re so out of control that it results in pathological outcomes for the individual,” she says.

But I think I would add a like soft addiction category, or like impulsiveness category. That like - my life is "fine" but that I spend all my time doing a thing that I would rather not be doing. And based on what everyone I know says about their phones, I think this one would come up high. It's pretty pathological if as a society, we're all spending our time doing something we wish we weren't. And I think it's concerningly dismissive to say if it's not addiction, we shouldn't attend to it.