Smartphones have ruined Gen Alpha childhood

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Smartphones have ruined Gen Alpha childhood". Your opponent's style: Jonathan Haidt

AI, you start the debate. Make your opening argument.

You're claiming smartphones ruined Gen Alpha childhood, but you're confusing correlation with causation. Every generation faced the same panic—video games would destroy us, television would rot our brains, books made us antisocial. Gen Alpha actually has unprecedented access to education, global collaboration, and creative tools previous kids could only dream of. Yes, excessive screen time has downsides, but selective technology use creates advantages: coding skills at age seven, multilingual exposure, instant access to mentors worldwide. The real question isn't whether smartphones exist—it's whether parents are setting boundaries. That's not the phone's fault. That's parenting. So what specific harm are you actually measuring against, or is this just nostalgia dressed up as concern?