Known for his outspokenness on mental health issues (especially men’s) mental health issues, Prince Harry, is currently focused on a very tricky problem: that of social media and its effects on youth. 

“In many cases, the smartphone…is stealing young people’s childhood,” he said in a conversation, a video of which was exclusively shared with Fortune this week, with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation.

Haidt—whose four foundational smartphone rules have inspired both celebration and pushback—couldn’t agree more, explaining to Harry the premise of his book: that people born after 1995 (Gen Z, roughly) throughout the English-speaking world hit puberty with high rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide, which all rose sharply between 2010 and 2012. And that it was no coincidence—but instead a direct result of the smartphone. 

“Young people trade in their flip phones for smartphones,” Haidt said about that moment of generational shifting, “and now [have] a front-facing camera, high-speed internet, a million apps that are competing with each other to hook kids’ attention. So, the ‘anxious generation’ is helping us understand the incredible destructive force of this transformation of childhood…and what we can do now to stop that from happening and to help those who already have been through it.”

Haidt and the Duke of Sussex sat down for the intimate discussion (see the full video above) about social media and mental health as part of Harry’s Archewell Foundation 2024 Insight Sessions—public conversations, highlights of which appear in a new Insight Report—about the impact of technology, with the voices of youth front and center.

Here, some of the most powerful takeaways from the spirited conversation.

Parents vs. social media companies

One of Haidt’s biggest worries about the current state of parenting and social media is that “we are overprotecting our children in the real world and underprotecting them online,” he said. “And both of those moves are mistakes. They’re bad for development.” It’s why he advocates for no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and more unsupervised play and childhood independence. 

It’s also why, Harry said, “it’s very easy for social media companies to point the finger at parents and say, ‘Well, you know, this is down to you. This is down to your parenting.’” 

But that’s an argument that Haidt rejects. 

“If there were some parents who were getting this wrong and most parents were getting it right, then I’d be very receptive to that argument,” he said. “But once kids get a phone and social media, the rest of family life turns into a fight over screen time. And this is happening everywhere. This is happening in Silicon Valley, where the parents know what’s going on.”

So why do we give our 10-year-olds smartphones? “The main reason,” Haidt said, “is because everyone else did. We don’t want our daughter to be the only one who’s left out. I’m facing this now with my 14-year-old daughter on Snapchat. So the tech companies put us in a bind, and then they’re trying to blame us for what they did.” It’s why he’s also an advocate of collective action, or parents banding together to agree to delay the purchase of smartphones for their kids.

What about smartphones for safety?

Through his insight sessions, said Harry, he’s spoken with parents who say they give their kids phones at a younger age to keep them safe. 

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “They want them to have their phone at school in case of emergency, but once, like any kid, you have your phone, even if you’re told you’re not allowed to download that app, kids have a way of working around it.”

Haidt’s not buying the safety argument, though. “If you want to give your kid a phone, so if anything goes wrong they can call you, great. Give them a phone. Just don’t give them a supercomputer connected to everyone in the world… They don’t need that. The millennials had flip phones. They went through puberty with flip phones to call each other, text each other, meet up. It came out fine.”

Gen Z, on the other hand, “went through puberty with a supercomputer blocking out almost everything else in life,” he said. “Everything goes down: much less time with friends, much less sunlight, very many fewer books, many fewer hobbies. You take almost everything out of childhood. You replace it with this and a bunch of million short videos. It’s not much of a childhood.”

The ‘myth’ of social media as lifeline

Prince Harry then raised the idea of social media having a positive—and even lifesaving—side. 

“Social media, we know, to a large extent, is giving an outlet, an added resource, to kids that perhaps don’t feel comfortable coming to us to talk about their issues and their troubles and their worries,” he said. “Kids online will be feeling more connected with complete strangers on social media. So how do you, if you’re a parent, know that your kid is getting good out of social media?”

Haidt said it is “one of Meta’s favorite talking points” that “social media is a lifeline for LGBTQ kids, for kids from marginalized communities. And that’s just not true.”

What is true, he said, “is that the internet was great for them. The internet solved all these problems in the ’90s. If you’re a gay kid, you’re not out to anyone in a rural part of America or England, the internet was amazing. You could find information, you could find people like you, and you could communicate.” But social media, Haidt insisted, has changed all that.

“It’s no longer even about just me connecting to you,” he said. “It’s now about an algorithm-driven news feed that sends content to you. This is not what they need. If you have any special interest, you can find that with Google. You don’t need an algorithm to feed you stuff.

So it’s “a myth,” he said, that Instagram and TikTok are lifelines. “The research, I think, is very clear: When kids have a best friend or especially a small group [of friends], they generally do well. When kids don’t have a close friend or close group, they’re much less likely to do well. When you have 300 connections, you don’t have time for anyone.”

Watch the video of the conversation here.

Culled from Fortune.

Indomitable matriarch who was by her husband’s side when he was shot dead in 1968 and continued his fight for justice

The Times, Thursday, October 10 2024

Ethel Kennedy, three months pregnant, was a few feet away from her husband, Robert, when he was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. She pushed through the mêlée, knelt by her husband and sought to comfort him. He died the next day.

Flying home, she “moved down the aisle of the plane, propping pillows under the heads of friends, telling them not to grieve”, according to a profile written a few years later. She organised his funeral, and iconic photographs show her dressed in a black veil, bravely leading the mourners. “There was something indomitable about Ethel,” the profile noted.
There needed to be. Her life veered between exuberance and tragedy. Fun-loving, gregarious, feisty and irreverent, she was an integral part of the “Camelot” mystique that the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, created in Washington in the early 1960s.

But both her parents had died in one plane crash, and her brother in another. Her husband and her brother-in-law, the president, were both assassinated. Of her 11 children, one son died from a drug overdose, another in a skiing accident. A daughter-in-law took her own life. A nephew was convicted of murder.

Ethel Kennedy never remarried after Robert’s death and largely avoided the media, but she did not let the so-called “Kennedy curse” break her. She vowed to continue her husband’s fight for justice and equality, and did so into her old age.

As recently as 2018, when she was 90, she participated in a 24-hour hunger strike in protest at President Trump’s policy of separating migrants from their children at the Mexican border. “Generations of Americans did not toil and sacrifice to build a country where children and their parents are placed in cages to advance a cynical political agenda,” she declared.

“That’s who she is,” said Ethel’s youngest child, Rory, a documentary maker who made an eponymous film about her mother in 2012. “She doesn’t reflect back on these moments [of tragedy] in the way that we might imagine, or do ourselves. She kind of forges ahead and moves on.”

Ethel Skakel was born in Chicago in 1928, the sixth of seven children of a strong-willed Irish-American mother and a coal tycoon who had started his working life as a railway clerk earning $8 a week and went on to build one of the biggest private companies in America. He was also an alcoholic.

She grew up in a family every bit as wealthy, rambunctious and devoutly Roman Catholic as the Kennedys — the one difference being that the Skakels were Republicans.
The family moved east when she was five, settling in an English-style manor house in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was educated at the all-girl Greenwich Academy, then the Convent of the Sacred Heart in the Bronx, and finally Manhattanville College where she became a close friend of Jean Kennedy (obituary, June 20, 2020), Robert’s sister, and regularly broke the rules. She was “alive with mischief”, according to her college yearbook.

She met Robert for the first time in 1945 when, aged 17, she joined a Kennedy family skiing holiday at the Mont Tremblant resort in Quebec. “He was standing in front of a roaring fireplace in the living room,” she recalled. “Wow … pretty great,” she thought. Robert was dating Ethel’s older sister, Patricia, at the time, but took up with Ethel when that relationship ended. She rode, sailed, played tennis, and enthusiastically embraced the Kennedy clan’s ethos of sports, roughhousing and fierce competition.

They were married at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenwich in 1950, with the Pope’s blessing. They settled in Washington, where Robert was working for the Department of Justice. Kathleen, the first of their 11 children and a future lieutenant-governor of Maryland, was born 13 months later.

In 1955 Ethel’s parents were both killed when their private plane crashed, having apparently run out of fuel, but she had plenty to distract her. The Kennedys’ second child, Joseph, a future US congressman, had been born in 1952. Bobby Jr, who was charged with heroin possession before becoming an environmental lawyer and who withdrew from his own presidential campaign this year, was born in 1954. David, who died of a drug overdose in a Florida hotel room aged 28, was born in 1955, and Courtney in 1956. Courtney later married Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four who were wrongly convicted of the Provisional IRA’s bombing of two Surrey pubs.

In 1956 the Kennedys bought Hickory Hill, a Georgian mansion set in a rolling six-acre estate in McLean, Virginia, from Robert’s brother John for $125,000. There they threw rollicking parties, with John Lennon, Judy Garland, Rudolph Nureyev and the like among the guests. André Malraux, the French novelist, once described Hickory Hill as “hellzapoppin’”. Arthur Schlesinger, the historian, called it “the most spirited social centre in Washington”, adding: “It was hard to resist the raffish, unpredictable, sometimes uncontrollable Kennedy parties.”

Ethel also enjoyed political campaigning, and actively supported John Kennedy’s congressional, Senate and presidential bids. After winning the White House in 1960 he appointed Robert attorney-general. By that stage Ethel had had two more children: Michael, a lawyer who died in a skiing accident in Colorado in 1997; and Mary, a human rights activist who was married to the future New York governor Andrew Cuomo for 15 years. Four more would follow: Christopher, a businessman, Max, a lawyer, Douglas, a journalist, and Rory, who was born six months after her father’s assassination.

In the end Ethel produced two more children than her mother-in-law, Rose, the great matriarch of the ultracompetitive Kennedy clan. John’s wife, Jackie, reportedly once described her sister-in-law as “a baby machine … wind her up and she becomes pregnant”.
Neither motherhood, nor her husband’s high office, nor his rumoured dalliance with Marilyn Monroe, curbed Ethel’s high spirits. President Kennedy had to intervene to stop his cabinet ministers being thrown in the Hickory Hill swimming pool. Ethel once “freed” a horse from a neighbouring farm because it was being mistreated.

She oversaw a menagerie of umpteen dogs, horses and a pet seal named Sandy. She received frequent speeding tickets. She was accused of buying expensive dresses, wearing them once, then returning them.

She could be difficult, too. She had a temper, and few cooks or domestic staff lasted long. She adopted a “tough love” approach to her children, demanding very high standards, and could swiftly withdraw her approval and affection. She had a tendency to “divide the world into friend and foe” and “sometimes discarded time-honoured friendships for minor infractions”, wrote her son, Bobby Jr, who had a strained relationship with his mother.

In November 1963 Ethel picked up the phone when J Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, called to break the news that John Kennedy had been assassinated. The president’s death caused Robert “six months of blackness”, she said, but it did not put her off politics. The following year she backed Robert’s successful bid to win a US Senate seat in New York. She would frequently appear beside him at interviews, rallies, congressional hearings and civil rights marches, often with her children in tow.

In 1968 she helped to persuade her wavering husband to challenge President Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was Robert’s “most consistent advocate of a race for the White House”, Evan Thomas, his biographer, wrote. But on June 5 that year, having just addressed supporters after winning the Democratic primary in California, he was shot by a Palestinian militant named Sirhan Sirhan.

After that Ethel’s life changed radically. She kept a much lower profile, though she enjoyed enormous public sympathy. She struggled to control her headstrong children, at least two of whom turned to drugs. She vowed never to remarry and never did, though for a while she was escorted to events by Andy Williams, the singer. She instead devoted herself to her husband’s legacy and other forms of political activism. She founded the Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights. She co-chaired the Coalition of Gun Control. She appeared at protests with the marginalised and downtrodden.

Rory recalled how in 1984 she and her brother Douglas watched on television as anti-apartheid activists were being arrested outside the South African embassy in Washington. They asked to go. “Without missing a beat, Mummy said, ‘Fantastic. Get in the car, I’ll get you down there’,” said Rory. “They arrested me and I was thrown in the car and handcuffed. I looked up at my mother and I tell you, I don’t think she has ever been prouder.”

In 2008 Ethel hosted a $6 million fundraiser for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign at Hickory Hill. Six years later he awarded her America’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for “advancing the cause of social justice, human rights, environmental protection and poverty reduction.”

In 2009 Ethel sold Hickory Hill for $8.25 million. Thereafter she divided her time between Palm Beach, Florida, and the Kennedy clan’s Hyannis Port compound in Massachusetts. By then she had long replaced Rose as its great matriarch and survivor. Religious and stoic to the end, she always resisted talking about her husband’s death or the other tragedies in her life. “Everyone deals with pain at some point. Why dwell on it?” she said. “Rose Kennedy said that after a storm the birds still sing. You just get on with it.”

Ethel Kennedy, human rights activist and Robert Kennedy’s widow, was born on April 11, 1928. She died after a stroke on October 10, 2024, aged 96

Culled from The Times

https://www.thetimes.com/article/4d5d6df4-29db-495a-9b10-e32628daafdf?shareToken=2f08769b2a9bdced3f1e218795b03df0

By Mabel Adinya Ade

The International Day of the Girl Child presents an opportunity to reflect on the state of girls in Nigeria, a country where numerous barriers continue to undermine the potential of the girl child. Despite progress in some areas, access to education, menstrual health, protection from gender-based violence, and safe environments remain significant challenges for millions of Nigerian girls. As a result, the Nigerian girl child finds herself caught in a complex web of cultural, social, and economic barriers, depriving her of the opportunity to thrive.

The Crisis of Education

Access to education remains one of the greatest challenges facing the Nigerian girl child. According to UNICEF, Nigeria has one of the highest rates of out-of-school children globally, with girls bearing the brunt of this crisis. Insecurity, insurgency, displacement, and resource scarcity often force families to prioritize which child to send to school, and more often than not, boys are chosen. The widespread displacement due to Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, and communal violence has left millions of children out of school. This is particularly true in northern Nigeria, where traditional beliefs sometimes limit the value placed on educating girls.

The cost of schooling also weighs heavily on families with scarce resources, leading to the early marriage of girls to relieve financial burdens. Compounding this, the lack of safe schools in conflict-affected areas puts girls at further risk, both physically and emotionally. Even where schools are available, poor menstrual health management infrastructure, including a lack of sanitary products and hygiene facilities, results in absenteeism, as girls skip school to avoid shame during their menstrual cycle. This issue perpetuates the cycle of poverty and disempowerment that prevents girls from achieving their full potential.

The Menstrual Health Crisis

Menstrual health is a critical yet overlooked challenge facing the Nigerian girl child. Millions of girls lack access to sanitary products and hygiene infrastructure, forcing them to use makeshift items that often lead to infections. Inadequate menstrual education, cultural stigmatization, and lack of privacy further exacerbate this issue. Many girls are embarrassed to attend school during their periods, leading to frequent absenteeism and, in some cases, complete withdrawal from education.

Without access to menstrual products, many girls fall behind in their studies, limiting their future prospects. This menstrual-related absenteeism also underscores broader gender inequalities in access to education, further entrenching the marginalization of girls in Nigeria.

The Threat of Gender-Based Violence

The Nigerian girl child is increasingly vulnerable to sexual gender-based violence (SGBV), which remains a pervasive and growing issue in the country. Conflict and displacement have made girls easy targets for traffickers, ritualists, and sexual predators. In some areas, “Yahoo boys” are implicated in butchering girls for ritual purposes, while organ harvesters’ prey on vulnerable girls for their body parts.

Underage pregnancy is another symptom of the widespread gender-based violence, particularly in conflict-affected areas. Many girls, often victims of rape, are left to raise children without access to resources, further compounding their vulnerability. The stigma attached to underage pregnancy prevents them from returning to school or participating in community life, perpetuating a cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and disempowerment.

Some Cases that Show the Nigerian Girl Child is an Endangered Specie

Alhaji Dogo’s Case (2019): This case involved a group of young men who lured a woman to a location under the pretense of helping her with a job. They killed her for ritual purposes, claiming it was to enhance their internet fraud activities. The perpetrators were arrested and faced prosecution.

The Case of Jennifer (2020): In this incident, a young woman was reportedly killed by her friend who was involved in internet fraud. The friend believed that sacrificing her would improve his chances of success in his scams. The case drew significant media attention and highlighted the disturbing trend of using human sacrifice for financial gain.

Chinelo’s Murder (2021): A young lady was murdered in a similar context, where fraudsters believed that using her for rituals would boost their luck in scamming activities. The case led to public outrage and calls for stricter laws against ritual killings.

Ifeoma’s Case (2022): A young student was lured under false pretenses by men involved in internet fraud. They killed her for ritualistic purposes, and the incident sparked widespread condemnation and discussions about the growing influence of ritualistic practices among youth.

Ijeoma’s Murder (2019): Ijeoma, a 22-year-old woman, was reportedly killed by her boyfriend, who was involved in internet fraud. He believed that sacrificing her would enhance his financial success. The case highlighted the dangers young women face in relationships with those engaged in fraudulent activities.

The Case of Happiness (2021): Happiness, a young woman, was abducted and later found murdered. Her death was linked to a group of fraudsters who were seeking rituals to improve their fortunes. The investigation revealed a network of individuals involved in similar crimes.

Ugochi’s Abduction and Murder (2022): Ugochi was kidnapped by men posing as job recruiters. They murdered her for ritual purposes, believing it would increase their chances in online scams. The incident led to protests against ritual killings and calls for stricter penalties.

Nneoma’s Case (2023): A university student named Nneoma was lured to a secluded location by a group of men involved in cybercrime. They killed her for ritual purposes, sparking outrage and highlighting the vulnerability of students.

The Killing of Yetunde (2023): Yetunde was killed by a gang who believed that using her for rituals would boost their online scamming activities. The police apprehended the suspects, and the case drew attention to the need for better protections for young women.

Chidera’s Case (2020): Chidera, a young woman, was killed by a group of men who believed that sacrificing her would enhance their internet scam operations. The gruesome nature of her death led to widespread outrage and condemnation.

Kemi’s Murder (2021): Kemi was reportedly lured to a meeting under the pretense of a job opportunity. After being abducted, she was murdered for ritualistic purposes by individuals involved in internet fraud. The case brought attention to the deceptive tactics used by perpetrators.

The Killing of Peace (2022): Peace was targeted by a gang of fraudsters who sought to use her for rituals. She was kidnapped and later found dead. This incident sparked protests and discussions about the dangers young women face from those involved in cybercrime.

Temitope’s Abduction (2022): Temitope was kidnapped by a group of men who were part of a ritual killing ring. They believed that her death would grant them success in their fraudulent activities. The case led to calls for stronger law enforcement actions against such crimes.

Adaobi’s Incident (2023): Adaobi, a university student, was murdered by individuals she trusted. They killed her for ritual purposes, thinking it would improve their luck in online scams. The incident highlighted the risks young women face in trusting relationships.

Charting a Way Forward: Strategic Actions for Change

To address the multifaceted challenges facing the Nigerian girl child, strategic interventions must be holistic, encompassing education, health, protection, and socio-economic empowerment. Parents, society, and the government must work together to unlock the full potential of girls.

1. Prioritize Girl Child Education: The government must strengthen policies that mandate free and compulsory education for all girls, with specific attention to conflict-affected and rural areas. Parents should be sensitized on the long-term benefits of educating girls, which not only transforms their lives but also contributes to family and national development. This will require more investment in building safe schools, providing scholarships, and offering incentives to families to keep their daughters in school.

2. Invest in Menstrual Health Management: Comprehensive policies and programs addressing menstrual health are crucial. The government, in partnership with NGOs and private sectors, should make sanitary products available in schools and communities, especially in rural areas. Schools must be equipped with hygiene facilities and girls should receive menstrual health education to reduce absenteeism. Menstrual health education must also be integrated into school curricula to destigmatize the natural biological process.

3. Strengthen Legal Protections and Enforcement: There is a need for stronger enforcement of laws against sexual violence, trafficking, and ritual killings. The government must ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted and that girls receive the necessary psychosocial and medical support to recover from trauma. Establishing specialized police units trained in handling cases of gender-based violence can provide the necessary protection and recourse for victims.

4. Create Safe Spaces for Girls: Society and communities should create safe spaces where girls can seek guidance, report abuse, and build life skills. These spaces, both in schools and communities, can offer mentoring and vocational training, fostering girls’ confidence and resilience. Traditional and religious leaders should be actively engaged in breaking down harmful practices and advocating for the protection and empowerment of girls.

5. Economic Empowerment Programmes: To reduce early marriage and improve girls’ autonomy, economic empowerment programmes targeting families, particularly in rural areas, must be established. Training programsme that provide families with skills to increase income will reduce the economic incentives for child marriage, allowing girls to continue their education.

6. Sexual and Reproductive Health Education: The government, in collaboration with health institutions, must expand access to reproductive health services and education, particularly in conflict-affected areas. This includes access to family planning, prenatal care, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The integration of reproductive health education into school curricula can equip girls with the knowledge to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

7. Political and Economic Empowerment of Girls: More investments should be made in leadership training programmes for girls to prepare them for future roles in political and economic spheres. This could be through mentorship programsme, targeted scholarships, and initiatives that expose girls to governance, entrepreneurship, and leadership at a young age.

Policy Recommendations

National Girl Child Development Policy: A national policy focusing on education, health, and economic empowerment for girls should be developed and implemented with clear metrics and targets. This policy should also address regional disparities and include strategies to ensure the protection of girls in conflict zones.

Institutionalizing Gender-Responsive Budgeting: Governments at Federal, State, and Local levels should adopt gender-responsive budgeting that ensures funding is allocated to programmes benefiting the girl child, including education, healthcare, and protection services.

Partnerships for Development: The private sector, NGOs, and development partners should collaborate with the government to design and implement programmes that support the holistic development of girls. Public-private partnerships can expand access to technology, training, and entrepreneurship opportunities for girls.

Conclusion

The future of the Nigerian girl child hinges on deliberate, sustained, and strategic efforts to dismantle the barriers that limit her potential. Parents, communities, the government, and civil society must act with urgency to create an environment that nurtures and protects girls. By investing in their education, health, safety, and leadership, we can unlock the transformative power of girls to build a more equitable and prosperous Nigeria.

Mabel Adinya Ade is E.D. Adinya Arise Foundation (AAF), [email protected]