Is Technology Really Ruining Teens’ Lives?
In recent years, an irresistibly intuitive hypothesis has both salved and fuelled parental anxieties: it’s the phones.
In early 2021, the journalist Matt Richtel spoke to a father who was a few weeks into a nightmare. Tatnai Burnett was a doctor, his wife was a therapist, and, until middle school, their daughter Elaniv had seemed to be the happy beneficiary of loving parents and a stable home. Then, without apparent external cause, she became depressed and began cutting herself. Her parents sought treatment, including medication and therapy, but on March 1, 2021, Elaniv took an overdose of pills. She arrived at the hospital conscious, then started hallucinating and having seizures, before going into cardiac arrest and being placed on life support.
