We just made it through Tax Day.

It’s a bit of a headache, but fortunately, we only have to do it once per year.

This year, it has us thinking about a different kind of tax that’s been adding up.

The only way to say this is to be blunt:

Tech companies are making money by selling kids’ attention.

And they have made their products as addictive as anything in the world. That’s the design. The longer kids (and adults) scroll, the more ads are seen, the more money gets made.

This is a tax on childhood. And for years, nobody sent the bill.

The Bill Has Arrived

Last month, two juries in one week found Meta and Google liable for harming kids.

First time ever.

A young woman testified that she started using YouTube at 6 and Instagram at 9. According to the court filings, she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at 10. The jury awarded her millions in damages. The day before, a different jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay a $375 million fine.

There are 2,000 more cases pending.

Also last month, the World Happiness Report came out.

One chapter is titled “Social media is harming adolescents at a scale large enough to cause changes at the population level.”

They don’t reference “some kids”. They say “the population”.

Young people in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have seen their well-being drop by almost a full point on a 10-point scale over the past decade. In the rest of the world, youth well-being went up over the same period.

The report’s conclusion: “If social media platforms did not exist, many users would be better off.”

Social media creates a tax on childhood, and the bill has arrived.

We’ve Been Here Before

In 1964, the Surgeon General put out a report linking cigarettes to lung cancer. Cigarette sales dropped some. But meaningful regulation took another 24 years. The broadcast advertising ban came in 1971. The report on addiction and secondhand smoke came in 1988.

Twenty-four years from the first alarm to fully grapple with the problem.

We are early in this social media timeline. Australia has passed age restrictions on social media in December. The court cases are starting. The research is piling up. But the regulations that will eventually come are still years away.

In the meantime, it’s up to us to make changes.

What The Tax Looks Like

Imagine trying to have lunch with a friend or study something for school while sitting at a table in the parking lot at Disney. You can see through the gates. You can hear the roller coasters. You know what is on the other side of that fence.

That is the screen. It is engineered to take our attention away from whatever is happening in real life. The pull of instant dopamine is powerful.

I know, because I look at this stuff too. Ask me sometime about the Geography/Map accounts I follow on Instagram (they’re awesome!).

But tech companies only make money when we choose scrolling over living our own lives.

Again, let’s think of this like taxes. (Almost) nobody pays 0%, and screen time isn’t going to zero either.

But would you like a 25% tax reduction this year?

This isn’t about trying to get out of taxes altogether. But what if we were able to reduce the burden a little? Find a reasonable deduction here and there.

Phones charging in the kitchen overnight? No devices at dinner? Or maybe a week or two in the summer where phones disappear entirely?

Small reductions do add up.

Do we want to tax children?

A few sentences ago, I said “(Almost) nobody pays 0%” because there is one big category of people who don’t pay taxes.

Our kids.

We’ve rightly chosen not to put that burden on young people.

It wasn’t always clear that social media was harmful to young people. But now we have the World Happiness Report. Now we have court rulings.

We have enough information to know this is a problem. Regulation will come, but it will take years. In the meantime, you have the opportunity to do something about it right now.

Social media is a part of our world, but you can still look for deductions.

And most of all, you can create “reset” periods where kids don’t have to pay the tax at all.

That’s what we do at camp - a fully tech-free environment. It may not be possible year-round, but a 2-3 week break can do a world of good.

Erec Sir