Osprey is on Substack!

More than a newsletter, on Substack, Osprey families can connect

We want to be sure that we're doing our best to connect families across the country who are being intentional about giving their children low-tech, social media-free childhoods. With Substack, we can keep you in the know about great things happening with our movement, and parents can connect here to chat and support each other with the chat feature if you download the Substack app.

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Jon Haidt’s New Book Could Change the World

Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation is coming on March 26. For those who are scrambling to change parenting culture in a tech-saturated world, this book will be a guide:

From New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

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Let’s Make Old School the New Way

The Old School Festival x Osprey on March 9, 2024 is almost sold out but there are a few tickets left here. Sponsored by C Spire: Join Erin and Ben Napier for the Old School Festival x Osprey at *Laurel Mercantile Co. and Scotsman General Store & Woodshop in Laurel, MS! Bring lawn chairs or blankets for the whole family and enjoy expert presentations on raising engaged and creative low-tech kids in the social media age, lunch, live music, and workshops for creative kids celebrating old school fun. This is a come and go event so you can explore downtown Laurel between presentations. All ticket sales cover meal cost and go toward fundraising for Osprey, a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

*In the event of rain, presentations and live music will move to the Laurel Little Theatre.

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A What’s App Group Chat That’s Connecting Low-Tech Families

Thousands join UK parents calling for smartphone-free childhood

Daisy Greenwell, a concerned mother, started a group chat with thousands of parents across the UK who are banding together to make tech decisions and delay smartphone use for their kids through high school. Could this be Osprey’s British cousin?

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We have the power to change the culture in our schools if we start when they’re little. Let’s make old school the new way.

Blue skies,

Erin Napier

CEO & Co-Founder of Osprey

ospreykids.com