📱 The Great Rewiring of Childhood: The shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood is a major cause of the international epidemic of adolescent mental illness.

📅 Key Dates: The release of the iPhone in 2007 marked a significant change in how we interact with the world.

🕒 Screen Time: Today, teens spend an average of 6 to 8 hours a day in front of screens, with 4.8 hours on social media.

📈 Rising Mental Health Issues: Since 2010, rates of depression in teenagers have increased by 150%, and self-harm among young girls has tripled.

🔍 Gen Z's Unique Challenges: Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with smartphones, leading to a decline in mental health compared to older generations.

🧠 Impact of Social Media: Social media is not just correlated with mental illness; it actively causes it, particularly among adolescents.

🏞️ Loss of Play: Children are missing out on essential play-based experiences, which are crucial for social and emotional development.

⚖️ Risky Play: Engaging in risky play helps children develop resilience and social skills, which are lacking in today's screen-dominated childhood.

📉 Attention Span: The smartphone ecosystem disrupts focus, leading to a "scatterbrained" state where skills and knowledge cannot be developed.

👩‍👧 Gender Differences: Social media affects girls more negatively due to social comparison, while boys face issues like isolation and a failure to launch into adulthood.

🛑 Need for Change: Parents must recognize the dangers of excessive screen time and encourage a return to a play-based childhood for healthier development.

🌟 Conclusion: The screen-based childhood is an uncontrolled experiment on children; promoting unsupervised play is essential for their growth into self-governing adults.