Regardless of constructing an more and more screen-focused world, billionaire tech leaders are conserving their very own youngsters away from the tech they helped create.
Way back to 2010, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs advised a New York Instances reporter his youngsters had by no means used an iPad and that, “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Since then, the pattern of Silicon Valley billionaires conserving their households away from know-how has turn out to be much more pronounced, thanks partially to the rise of social media and short-form video.
Extreme machine use amongst youngsters has turn out to be extra widespread in recent times as busy mother and father flip to screens to seek out some peace. The pattern has accelerated a lot that some younger youngsters accustomed to intensive display screen time are dubbed “iPad kids.” On common, youngsters within the U.S. ages 8 to 18 spend 7.5 hours per day watching or utilizing screens, based on the American Academy of Little one and Adolescent Psychiatry.
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen mentioned at a chat on the Stanford Graduate Faculty of Enterprise final yr that he wouldn’t need his youngsters consuming solely short-form content material, noting that it is perhaps higher to restrict youngsters to movies longer than quarter-hour.
“Shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans,” he mentioned.
On the 2024 Aspen Concepts Pageant, early Fb investor and billionaire Peter Thiel joined Chen among the many ranks of tech leaders who’re setting strict limits on screens. Thiel mentioned he solely lets his two younger youngsters use screens for an hour-and-a-half per week, a revelation that prompted audible gasps from the viewers.
Different tech CEOs, together with Microsoft’s Invoice Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, have additionally spoken about limiting their youngsters’s entry to gadgets. Gates has mentioned he didn’t give his youngsters smartphones till age 14 and banned telephones on the dinner desk completely. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in 2018, mentioned he limits his youngster to the identical 1.5 hours per week of display screen time as Thiel. And eventually, Musk, who purchased the social media firm X, previously Twitter, in 2022, mentioned it “might’ve been a mistake” to not set any guidelines on social media for his youngsters.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who as soon as mentioned his personal youngsters have been too younger to make use of TikTok, clarified in 2023 that if his youngsters lived within the U.S. and had entry to the rigorous protections related to the platform’s under-13 settings, he would allow them to use the app. He mentioned even an 8-year-old might use the platform within the under-13 expertise, which, amongst different protections, consists of vetted content material, no entry to posting, and no commercials.
Scientific analysis backs up their parenting instincts. A 2025 research of practically 100,000 individuals discovered that short-form video use was persistently related to poorer cognition and a decline in lots of points of psychological well being throughout each youthful and older social media customers.
Social media backlash is rising
As younger individuals more and more spend most of their waking moments on-line, the backlash towards social media, and particularly minors’ use of social media, has reached a breaking level.
Prior to now yr, Australia and Malaysia grew to become the primary international locations to ban adolescents below 16 from utilizing social media. And a number of other different international locations, together with France, Denmark, and the UK, are contemplating comparable laws.
In the meantime, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand earlier this week to defend his firm towards claims from a 20-year-old plaintiff that the social media large constructed its platforms to hook younger youngsters.
And but, removed from being a brand new phenomenon, the concept that social media use is dangerous for younger individuals has been round for years. Nonetheless, it’s the tech leaders who created the eye financial system who’ve been probably the most attentive to this reality.
To make sure, a number of social media CEOs have publicly pushed again on claims that their platforms are dangerous. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified earlier this month within the trial towards Meta that social media doesn’t represent “clinical addiction.” Meta’s attorneys through the trial additionally outlined a variety of security options Instagram has launched for youthful customers, together with limits on the visibility of grownup content material and muted notifications at night time.
But, because the trials towards social media corporations proceed and nation after nation strikes towards legislating what Silicon Valley’s billionaires have quietly practiced for years, the non-public habits of the world’s strongest tech figures stands in distinction to what they’re selling and constructing.
