What Parents Wish Their Children Could Grow Up Without

With the technological advancements of the past two decades, a lot of new challenges have emerged for parents of young children. As they try to navigate the ever-evolving media and device landscape, it’s as difficult as it is important to strike the right balance between giving kids the chance to learn how to use technology and protecting them from the potential harm that early (over)use of smartphones and social media can doubtlessly inflict on a child’s development.

Given the complexity of the task at hand and the lack of past experience to draw from, it’s understandable that many parents are uncertain how to manage their children’s device use, screen and social media time. And while they acknowledge the potential benefits of smartphones and social media, a sizeable share of parents would like to turn back the time for their children’s sake, according to a recent Harris Poll.

When asked which things they wished had never been invented thinking about their child’s experience growing up, more than half of the surveyed parents said they wished for their kids that social media didn’t exist. More specifically, 62 percent of respondents wished that TikTok had never been invented, 62 percent said they would have liked to spare their kids the toxicity of X (formerly Twitter) and 56 percent wished that Instagram didn’t exist. As our chart shows, the one thing parents wanted gone most for the sake of their children is online pornography, which more than 7 in 10 respondents hoped wouldn’t exist.