The Extraordinary Lie: Missing Out Isn’t the Risk, Early Smartphones Are
By Kayleigh Robertson, BA Hons., CPS.
Giving a child a smartphone isn’t giving them connection, it’s risking it. Anxiety. Depression. Loneliness. Constant comparison. Social pressure. These are not side effects; they are built into the device you think will help your child belong.
“But won’t my child be left out without one?”
That fear is understandable in a culture where screens are always on, though it’s a complete misconception, driven by two things: your child’s adolescent brain, wired to seek approval and fit in, and technology designed to capture their attention. The reality is the opposite: giving a smartphone often undermines connection, creating anxiety, disconnection, and mistrust instead of friendship, trust, and real-life social skills.
I know this because I lived it. I was 13 years old in 2013, desperate to “be like everyone else,” when I got my first phone. I thought I’d finally belong. But everything began to change. Friendship stopped being about time together and became about constant availability. Every unopened message felt like rejection. Every unanswered Snap became a reason to question myself. Snapstreaks were proof that I wasn’t really connected. My friends and I drifted apart, not because I didn’t have a phone, but because I did.
Group chats made it worse. Bullying, exclusion, and conflict happened in real time, amplified and recorded, with no way to step away without social consequence. My brain, still developing and wired for real-life connection, learned anxiety instead of trust, impatience instead of patience, comparison instead of empathy.
Smartphones hijack a child’s brain. The need to belong is normal, but the device turns it against them for so many reasons.
1) Through seeing someone ignore you, versus calling their home phone and waiting until they’re not busy.
2) They are held to impossible standards they can never meet, creating a constant sense of inadequacy, certainly not belonging.
3) Smartphones undermine real-life learning, like how to talk to, relate to, and care for others, and
4) They erode boundaries, empathy, and genuine connection through things like “follower counts” or sending a photo of a blank wall just to keep a Snap streak alive.
5) An ordinary life, quiet, private, unrecorded, is where confidence, patience, and resilience are built. Online life shows only extraordinary moments. Kids internalize failure when they can’t measure up.
6) They internalize disconnection when their apps become the only space where their friends exist.
The constant pressure to live in the extraordinary online world doesn’t just create anxiety or loneliness: it can have real, lasting consequences. When children’s brains are wired to seek approval and connection, being trapped in a digital environment that constantly measures worth by likes, streaks, and views can distort their sense of self, erode social skills, and intensify feelings of isolation on a spectrum of problematic use. And on one end of the spectrum, the impact is severe, affecting mental health, relationships, and even basic developmental abilities. The devices meant to connect children often leave them disconnected from themselves, their peers, and reality.
In 2016, I was hospitalized 6 times for social media-induced psychosis. The effects lasted 6 years, shaping my mental health, finances, and ability to relate to others; the very connection my parents thought the phone would provide. They still carry regret. And they’re thankful that now, at 26, I have been pulled out of this spiral. That I am no longer hooked up. That I am no longer lonely, desperate to fit in, spending all of my money, struggling with employment. The sad reality is that this is not just my story. It’s what can happen when a child’s brain, wired to belong, is exposed to devices designed to exploit that need, and destroy the abilities to form connections. And it is what has happened to Generation Z.
My experience is not unique. Data shows that when children grow up chasing the extraordinary, raised on smartphones, report record levels of anxiety, loneliness, and body dissatisfaction. They spend less time with friends in person than any previous generation and are more likely to feel “burnt out” before 25. This is not weakness; it’s the consequence of a system designed to make them anxious and endlessly available.
Parents often forget: this fight is temporary. You’ll spend your child’s teenage years negotiating curfews, parties, and homework, and this is just one more boundary. “But my friends’ parents let them!” is not new. Like every other boundary, this one protects them long after the struggle ends. It’s not a lifetime. It’s just adolescence.
At 26, I have no social media, and not only is my brain back, not only do I have real patience, real confidence, and real love, I am not left out. I get calls. I get invited. My friends and I are closer than ever because our connection isn’t measured in streaks. Your children deserve the same. Their friends will call. They will belong. They will grow up normally. Trust “normal”.
Even in the best-case scenario for children given a phone too early, on the other end of the spectrum, is that they may survive, but not thrive. Happiness, joy, and deep connection are harder to achieve when a device dictates their sense of self. It is these devices, meant to connect them, that betray their natural development.
Smartphones are not the new normal, they have only been normalized. Don’t let your child be a victim of the generation that loses the ordinary: the foundation of real friendships, real growth, and a real life worth living.
