Book

10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children's Lives

Sep 2025 🇺🇸 Atria Books (Simon & Schuster)

10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World is Jean Twenge's 2025 parenting book, translating her research on smartphones, social media, and gaming into a step-by-step guide for households. Twenge argues that legal protections limiting children's access to inappropriate online content are weak, so she recommends parents set and enforce firm limits themselves: delaying smartphone ownership until a child is old enough to drive, backing up screen-time rules with parental-control software, and protecting time for sleep, exercise, and in-person socializing. She points to research she says shows delaying smartphone access is associated with better mental-health outcomes, and includes real-world examples — such as a family sending unsupervised, phone-free teens on a campout — to illustrate tech-free independence. TechKids Foundation cites this book as Twenge's most current, practice-oriented distillation of her research for parents and educators, published shortly before her January 2026 Senate testimony.

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CITATION

Twenge, Jean M. 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children's Lives. Atria Books, September 2, 2025.

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