More Nature, Less Feeds
From a play-based childhood, to a phone-based childhood.
If you’re a parent—or frankly, a living, breathing human being—you’ve probably felt it. That gnawing sense that something’s gone terribly off course with childhood. Where did the laughter-filled afternoons go? The scraped knees from climbing too high? The hours spent building forts instead of building a TikTok following?
Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation, doesn’t just explore this crisis—it puts it under a microscope and shows us exactly how we got here. His research paints a stark picture: starting around 2010, just as smartphones slipped into little hands and social media became the new playground, childhood as we knew it quietly left the stage. And in its place? A sharp rise in anxiety, depression, and a generation of kids more connected to their screens than to themselves.
What hit me hardest was his description of the shift from what he calls a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood.” Playgrounds were traded for platforms. Real friends for followers. And as that happened, our children’s natural ways of learning—through real-life experiences, through unstructured play, through messing up and trying again—started to vanish.
But here’s where I exhale. Because there is another way. And it’s not some grand, impossible solution. It’s as simple—and as profound—as sending kids back outside. Back to the woods. Back to real friendships, messy play, and that magical thing called boredom, where imagination comes alive.
At AWE, we aren’t just offering an alternative; we’re staging a joyful rebellion. Every time a child climbs a tree instead of leveling up on a screen, every time they negotiate a game’s rules face-to-face rather than through a DM, we’re helping them reclaim their birthright—to feel life, not just scroll past it.
We don’t ban technology like some villain lurking in the shadows. We teach kids to use it responsibly, but only after they’ve built the foundation that screens can’t give them—emotional resilience, real-world problem solving, and good old-fashioned wonder.
So, yes, Haidt’s book is sobering. But for me, it’s also affirming. Because every muddy boot, every skinned knee, every day spent under the canopy of trees instead of the harsh glow of a screen—is proof that we’re already part of the solution. And we’re inviting you to be part of it too.
Come build a future where children’s joy isn’t measured in likes but in laughter. A future where the forest is their feed, and every day holds the promise of a new adventure.