What We Are Doing to Children

One woman's story

This is a story from a woman in the UK about what she observed on a bus that should really resonate with any of us with children or grandchildren. This is a summary of her words, which I felt were important enough to share.

A few weeks ago, I witnessed something small that felt uncomfortably large.

I was standing on a crowded bus in London, watching a young man and a young woman seated side by side. Both were attractive, professional-looking, and absorbed in their phones. Nothing unusual—until I noticed they were each scrolling through dating apps, studying profiles of people who looked remarkably like the person sitting next to them.

When the bus stopped, they got up and walked away in opposite directions. They never once acknowledged each other’s presence.

They were physically close, both looking for connection, and completely unaware of the human being beside them.

That moment has stayed with me, because it reflects something deeper and more troubling—especially when it comes to children.

We are told that screens connect us. In some ways, they do. But when digital engagement replaces awareness of the people directly in front of us, something vital is lost. And when that trade-off becomes the default environment of childhood, the consequences are no longer subtle.

Across classrooms and playgrounds, something has shifted. Teachers report children who are distracted during lessons and oddly silent during breaks. The noisy exuberance of childhood—the running, shouting, arguing, imagining—has been replaced with anxiety, irritability, and withdrawal. Many children now appear overstimulated yet under-engaged, constantly distracted but rarely fulfilled.

This is not simply a cultural change. It is a neurological one.

The data is increasingly difficult to ignore. Rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and suicide among children and teenagers have risen sharply over the past decade. Social media and excessive screen exposure are now widely cited as major contributing factors. Children are spending hours each day in digital environments that their developing brains are not equipped to process safely.

Screen time also comes with an often-overlooked cost: displacement. Time spent on screens is time not spent reading, playing outdoors, drawing, imagining, or being bored—an essential condition for creativity. Childhood used to include long stretches of unstructured time. Today, those spaces are increasingly filled by devices designed to capture attention and stimulate dopamine, not to nurture growth.

Even very young children are affected. Toddlers are regularly subdued with screens in public spaces, despite being naturally curious about faces, movement, sounds, and surroundings. This early substitution of digital stimulation for human interaction is associated with delayed speech, impaired emotional regulation, and reduced cognitive development.

And yet, we continue to double down.

Screens are now deeply embedded in schools under the banner of “educational technology.” Tablets, laptops, smart boards, and AI-driven learning platforms are presented as progress, even as research increasingly shows they often impair learning rather than improve it. Reading comprehension, focus, memory, and deep understanding all suffer when learning shifts from page to screen.

Countries that have taken a hard look at the evidence are beginning to reverse course—returning to books, handwriting, and teacher-led instruction. Even leaders of the technology industry have publicly limited screen use for their own children. That alone should give us pause.

The human brain is not designed for constant stimulation. It strengthens through sustained attention, effort, and deep thinking. Screens encourage the opposite: rapid switching, shallow engagement, and dependency. When learning becomes frictionless, it also becomes thinner.

What makes this especially concerning is that children have no real choice in the matter. They inherit the environments adults create. When those environments prioritize convenience, novelty, or profit over development and well-being, children pay the price.

This is not an argument against all technology. It is an argument for restraint, intention, and humility. Technology should be a tool—not a default setting. Childhood should not be a live experiment run by companies whose primary obligation is to shareholders.

If we want a generation capable of focus, empathy, creativity, and responsibility, we must rethink what we are normalizing. Instead of demanding endless proof that screens are harmful, perhaps we should ask a simpler question:

Where is the evidence that what we are doing to children is safe?

If we are willing to slow down, reconsider, and put human development back at the center of education and parenting, there is still time to change course. Childhood does not have to be surrendered to glowing rectangles. It can be reclaimed—quietly, deliberately, and with care.