We interrupt your normal blog to share two links.

First, I want to share one of the more exciting experiences I had last year. About a month before Dr Jonathan Haidt published his best-selling book “The Anxious Generation”, I spoke with him at the National Conference of the American Camp Association. In his book, he discusses concerning trends in mental health for our young people. He also suggests two major causes of this trend: increased social media usage and reduced “free play” time by children. I wanted him to know that summer camp was a great solution to both problems.

I was delighted when he agreeed wholeheartedly and then asked me to write an article for his Substack page. If you have not seen it, here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

Second, I want to make sure that you saw that the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has suggested that we should have safety warnings on social media for young people. Here is the opinion article in which he explains why. Unlike cigarettes, we do not have decades of evidence of the harmful effects of social media, but the initial data are sufficiently concerning that he believes we should take action in an abundance of caution.

Of course, you are already doing one of the single more powerful things to arm your kiddo against this threat - you are sending them to camp!

We now return you to our normally scheduled blog.

Steve Sir