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Resilience and other life skills are best learned through unstructured play.
I recently came across a horrifying fact: More 8- and 9-year-old children have talked to an AI chatbot than have ever used a sharp knife.
That insight came from a 2025 Harris survey conducted in conjunction with psychologist Jonathan Haidt, his New York University colleague Zach Rausch and “free-range-childhood” advocate Lenore Skenazy. I find this fact scary for two reasons. First, AI chatbots aren’t appropriate for young children, at least not in their current unreliable form. Second, by 8 or 9, kids should be learning how to use sharp knives, not to mention hammers, saws, stoves and other potentially risky household items. But too often, we overprotect children, so they don’t learn to use essential tools safely.
I’m a technology writer, a techno-optimist even. So I’m dubious about blanket condemnations of tech advances. And I hate to harsh the holiday glow with Scrooge-like warnings. But worries about children’s screen time and social-media access are well-founded. As Mr. Haidt documents in his 2024 book, “The Anxious Generation,” many psychological ills affecting young people started surging after 2012, about the time smartphones and social apps became de rigueur for American adolescents. Today, exposure to digital culture starts much earlier, with tablets and internet-enabled toys designed even for toddlers.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.
Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images