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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.
两个月前，黛西·格林威尔(Daisy Greenwell)和克莱尔·费尼霍夫(Clare Fernyhough)创建了一个WhatsApp群组，讨论如何降低孩子对智能手机的需求。
After they posted about their plans on Instagram, other parents wanted in.
当他们在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，他们的组织“无手机的童年”拥有6万多名粉丝，他们一起讨论如何让孩子远离恶魔般的电子设备，他们自然会在自己的智能手机上进行讨论。
This group, based in Britain, is not the only one worried about children's screen time.
这个总部位于英国的组织并不是唯一一个担心儿童荧幕时间的组织。
Last month the state of Florida passed a law banning social media for under-14s.
上个月，佛罗里达州通过了一项法律，禁止14岁以下青少年使用社交媒体。
Britain's government is reportedly considering a ban on mobile-phone sales to under-16s.
据报道，英国政府正在考虑禁止向16岁以下青少年销售手机。
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.
在一场有争议的讨论中，有两件事是相当清楚的。首先，智能手机和社交媒体已成为童年的重要组成部分。
By the age of 12 nearly every child has a phone, according to research in Britain.
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.
一旦他们有了社交媒体，他们就会花费大部分时间浏览屏幕。
American teens spend nearly five hours a day on social apps, according to polls by Gallup.
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 and Instagram are most popular (Facebook, the world's largest social network, is a distant fourth).
YouTube、TikTok和Instagram最受欢迎（全球最大的社交网络Facebook排名第四）。
Second, most agree that in much of the rich world there has been a decline in mental health among the young.
其次，大多数人都认为，在许多发达国家，年轻人的心理健康状况一直在下降。
The share of American teenagers reporting at least one "major depressive episode" in the past year has increased by more than 150% since 2010.
自2010年以来，汇报称在过去一年中至少经历过一次“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.
持怀疑态度的人认为，也许“重度抑郁发作”类似的术语已经被滥用了。但这不仅仅是说说而已。
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.
在17个主要发达国家中，少女和年轻女性的自杀率急剧上升，但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？这个时机很具有启发性：21世纪10年代，随着智能手机和社交应用程序的兴起，人们的心理健康状况开始下滑。
Some studies also suggest that children who spend more time on social media have poorer mental health than lighter users.
一些研究还表明，花更多时间在社交媒体上的孩子比不常使用社交媒体的孩子心理健康状况更差。
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.
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滚动智能手机或电子屏幕浏览大量负面内容。
A small number of randomised experimental studies are chipping away at the causal question.
少数随机实验研究正在逐步解决因果问题。
In 2017 Roberto Mosquera of the Universidad de las Américas, and colleagues, got a group of Facebook users in America to stay off the platform for a week.
2017年，美洲大学的罗伯托·莫斯克拉(Roberto Mosquera)和同事让美国的一群Facebook用户停止使用该平台一周。
The abstainers reported being less depressed than the control group and took part in more varied activities; they also consumed less news.
据报告，停用组比对照组的抑郁程度要低，并且参加了更多样的活动；他们浏览的新闻也较少。
In 2018 researchers at Stanford and New York University did a similar experiment, again in America.
2018年，斯坦福大学和纽约大学的研究人员再次在美国进行了类似的实验。
