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Two months ago Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough set up a WhatsApp group to discuss how to stave off their young children's demands for smartphones. After they posted about their plans on Instagram, other parents wanted in.
两个月前，黛西·格林威尔和克莱尔·费尼霍夫创建了一个WhatsApp群组，讨论如何降低孩子对智能手机的需求。当她们在Instagram上发布计划后，其他家长也想加入。
Now their group, Smartphone-Free Childhood, has more than 60,000 followers debating how to keep their children away from the demon devices — a debate they are naturally conducting on smartphones of their own.
现在她们的群组“无手机童年”拥有6万多名粉丝，一起讨论如何让孩子远离恶魔般的电子设备，讨论自然也是在她们自己的智能手机上进行的。
This group, based in Britain, is not the only one worried about children's screen time. Last month the state of Florida passed a law banning social media for under-14s. Britain's government is reportedly considering a ban on mobile-phone sales to under-16s.
担心儿童荧幕时间的并非只有这一个位于英国的群组。上个月，佛罗里达州通过了一项法律，禁止14岁以下的青少年使用社交媒体。据报道，英国政府正在考虑禁止向16岁以下的青少年销售手机。
The concerns are summed up by a recent book by Jonathan Haidt, "The Anxious Generation", which argues that smartphones, and especially the social networks accessed through them, are causing a malign "rewiring of childhood".
乔纳森·海特最近出版的《焦虑的一代》一书总结了这些担忧，该书认为智能手机，尤其是通过智能手机访问的社交网络，正在造成恶性的“童年重塑”。
In a contentious debate two things are fairly clear. First, smartphones and social media have become a big part of childhood. By the age of 12 nearly every child has a phone, according to research in Britain.
在一场有争议的讨论中，有两点是相当清楚的。首先，智能手机和社交媒体已成为童年的重要组成部分。英国有研究表明，到12岁时，几乎每个孩子都拥有一部手机。
Once they get one, social media is how they spend most of their screen time. American teens spend nearly five hours a day on social apps, according to polls by Gallup. YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are most popular (Facebook, the world's largest social network, is a distant fourth).
一旦他们有了手机，他们的大部分荧幕时间就会用在社交媒体上。盖洛普民意调查显示，美国青少年每天在社交应用上花费近五个小时。YouTube、TikTok和Instagram最受欢迎（全球最大的社交网络Facebook排名第四，与前三名差距很大）。
Second, most agree that in much of the rich world there has been a decline in mental health among the young. The share of American teenagers reporting at least one "major depressive episode" in the past year has increased by more than 150% since 2010.
其次，大多数人都认为，在许多富裕国家，年轻人的心理健康状况一直在下降。自2010年以来，报告称在过去一年中至少有过一次“重度抑郁发作”的美国青少年比例增加了150%以上。
Perhaps such terms have simply become less taboo, sceptics suggest. But it is more than talk. Across 17 mostly rich countries, there has been a sharp rise in suicide among teenage girls and young women, though their suicide rate remains the lowest of any cohort.
持怀疑态度的人认为，也许“重度抑郁发作”之类的说法已经变得不那么说不出口了。但这不仅仅是说说而已。在17个富裕国家中，少女和年轻女性的自杀率急剧上升，尽管她们的自杀率仍然是所有群体中最低的。
Are the phenomena linked? The timing is suggestive: mental health began to slide just as smartphones and social apps took off, in the 2010s.
这些现象之间有联系吗？其中的时机能说明一些事情：人们的心理健康状况在2010年代开始下滑，正是智能手机和社交应用程序流行起来的时候。
Some studies also suggest that children who spend more time on social media have poorer mental health than lighter users. But such correlations do not prove causation: it may be, for instance, that depressed, lonely children choose to spend more time doom-scrolling than happy ones do.
一些研究还表明，花更多时间在社交媒体上的孩子比轻度使用社交媒体的孩子心理健康状况更差。但这种相关性并不能证明因果关系：例如，抑郁、孤独的孩子可能比快乐的孩子选择花更多时间刷手机，浏览大量负面内容。
