Jonathan Haidt has been one of the loudest and most credible voices in the conversation about what smartphones are doing to our kids. His book The Anxious Generation laid out years of research behind a conclusion that many parents had already reached intuitively: something shifted around 2012, and it wasn’t subtle. Depression, anxiety, loneliness — the numbers moved in the wrong direction right around the time smartphones became a permanent fixture in kids’ pockets.
Haidt doesn’t mince words about why. “The companies are competing against each other for users’ attention,” he’s written, “and, like gambling casinos, they’ll do anything to hold on to their users even if they harm them in the process.”
That’s the backdrop for a bill now working its way through Congress — one that Haidt himself has pointed to as a step in the right direction.
What the Parents Over Platforms Act Actually Is
The Parents Over Platforms Act (POPA) has a simple premise: parents should be the ones setting the rules for what their kids access online, not tech companies, and not a government default that treats every family the same.
Right now, keeping kids safe online is a patchwork. Some states have passed laws that require parental approval for essentially every app a minor downloads — which sounds protective until you realize that means you’d be approving weather apps, homework tools, and news sites right alongside TikTok. The burden ends up on you, and it’s constant.
POPA takes a different approach:
- You answer one question: “Is this user a minor?” once, when you set up the device.
- The app store sends a simple signal to apps: minor or adult. Your child’s actual birthdate and personal information stay private.
- Apps automatically adjust for minor accounts. Adult content is blocked, targeted advertising is turned off, and safety features are activated.
- You still have full control to block specific apps, set limits, and monitor usage. You’re just not flooded with approval requests every time your kid wants to download something new.
Why It Matters That Haidt Supports It
What makes Haidt’s voice meaningful here is that he doesn’t come from one political tribe. His research has been cited by both ends of the political spectrum, and his recommendations have always centered on the same idea: we’ve overprotected kids in the physical world and underprotected them in the digital one. The phone-based childhood, he argues, replaced the free-range, play-based childhood that generations before Gen Z grew up with — and kids are paying for that trade-off.
When he highlighted POPA on social media earlier this month, he called it an example of “creativity in finding ways to do it well” — specifically because it asks parents to set age information once, at setup, rather than turning every app download into a permission slip.
That framing matters. Because there’s a real difference between a policy that empowers parents and one that just adds more checkboxes while leaving the underlying problem untouched.
What This Means for Your Family
No law is going to replace what you do at home. Knowing which platforms your kids are using, talking openly about what they’re seeing, protecting sleep by keeping phones out of bedrooms — those things matter more than any bill Congress passes.
But legislation like POPA is asking the right question: should the default setting for kids online be “open to everything until a parent catches it” or “protected until a parent decides otherwise”? Most parents would choose the second option, and quickly.
The families who are most prepared for whatever comes next (legally, technologically, culturally) are the ones paying attention now. Not because they’re anxious, but because they’re engaged. And that’s the thing no app store or federal rule can replicate.
You’re already doing the most important part. Staying informed on what’s moving through Congress is just another way of staying in the game.