Exclusive: New York, Utah lead nation in protecting children's mental wellbeing
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Screenshot: The Anxious Generation Movement
New York and Utah are leading the nation on children's well-being, according to a new 50-state ranking of policy, leadership and family perceptions called The Childhood Index.
Why it matters: Lack of federal oversight has forced states to step in and fill the gap as concerns about addictive social media algorithms and technology's impact on children have mounted.
- "Right now, a kid's chance at flourishing depends on their zip code," The Anxious Generation Movement, which created The Childhood Index, said.
State of play: New York and Utah, the only states ranked as national leaders in Wednesday's rankings release, are "characterized by engaged governors and attorneys general who understand that reclaiming childhood requires action on multiple fronts at once," according to a press release from The Anxious Generation Movement.
- The rankings were determined by looking at state laws on phone-free schools, childhood independence, social media age limits and tech regulation.
- States were organized into four tiers — national leaders, rising stars, emerging action and limited action.
- Its four tiers are "not meant to be a final verdict," but serve as a benchmark and actionable tool for state leaders, according to the press release.
Six states — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas and Vermont — are considered "rising stars" and have made meaningful progress on at least two core criteria, per the rankings
Zoom in: 15 states are ranked by their "emerging action," which means they "have demonstrated the political will to act and are past the starting line."
- And 16 states in the "limited action" tier have taken little or no meaningful action across the Anxious Generation's core criteria.
Context: The Anxious Generation Movement says it is "advancing four new norms to rewire childhood" — no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools and more independence, free play and responsibility.
- The nonprofit followed the success of NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's best-selling book on teen mental illness.
Go deeper: What research says about social media addiction as Zuckerberg testifies in court
Methodology: The Childhood Index was determined via analysis The Anxious Generation Movement's in-house policy team, which looked at every state's laws, policies, and leadership. The rankings also used survey data from the Phone-Free Schools Report Card, a survey of nearly 24,000 families across all 50 states from the Institute for Family Studies, and expert evaluations from Let Grow, the Institute for Families and Technology, the Becca Schmill Foundation, and Smartphone Free Childhood.
