The “ban teens from everything” nanny-panics are what is really harming youth – and society

Teens benefit from “risky, unsupervised” opportunities to grow, social-media nannies declare. Why, then, aren't they using their attention-getting platforms to advance those ends?

“From vandalism and brawls to shocking daylight shootings, teen violence is rising in NYC—and officials are taking action,” the standard ever-worshipful news-panic story blared of New York City’s latest wave of chaotic curfew and adult-chaperone enforcements aimed at teens.

What lunacy. Here are the ages the NYC Police Department’s own latest statistics show cause crime, ranked from most to least: age 30-39, 20-29, 40-49, 50-59, under 20, and 60 and older. Persons under age 20 account for 9% of the city’s assaults, 6% of homicides, 5% of shopliftings, 3% of drug offenses, 2% of thefts, and 3% of crime overall, far below the numbers for every older grownup age except seniors 65 and older (2%).

The NYPD reports 354 homicides so far in 2025, along with ages for 81 suspects. Of these, 5 are under age 18, the same as for age 60 and older. Given the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020 and 2021, offenses have risen for every age group, but teen numbers remain well below those of pre-COVID years and stand near their lowest levels in 60 years of FBI reporting.

The brain-dead stupidity of NYC’s curfew – other than the mountain of consistent research showing curfews don’t work and actually make cities less safe – is that many locales require teens to be chaperoned by adults whose older age groups have far higher rates of crime than teens do. Perhaps the city’s targeted teens should lobby President Donald Trump, just as NYC Mayor Eric Adams did to escape his felony corruption charges.

As discussed previously, prohibitions on teens’ rights – drinking ages, driving laws, curfews, school uniforms, zero-tolerance policies, forced student drug testing, mall and park chaperonings, smartphone bans, on and on – typically are greeted with loud cheers of success (widely publicized) that later research (largely ignored) demolishes. One repeating effect is to increase risks among young adults. Yet, solid research on the zero and harmful effects of these teen bans doesn’t seem to provoke their repeal.

Where are the “phone-free childhood” nannies?

Popular psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues teens should be encouraged to engage in more “risky unsupervised” offline public endeavors “essential for overcoming fear and fragility” – that is, less nannying. Strangely, he then turns around and calls for more nanny-bans from social media – which teens tell Pew Research contributes to their connections with friends, creative expression, getting help in tough times, and feelings of acceptance. Haidt argues that online time poses risks to teens’ social development, exposure to predatory adults and interests, harmful messages and items, status comparisons, and vulnerability to media “addiction.” (Next week’s post will examine these claims in detail.)

Even if teens are wrong about the positives and Haidt is right that there’s nothing good about social media, wouldn’t learning to handle the negatives he lists be important growing-up skills for teens? Not only is the internet not going away, teens encounter these same risks – predatory adults, harmful messages, guns, drugs, bullyings, bad temptations, etc. – face-to-face, constantly, and much more menacingly in their offline lives.

In any case, New York City’s curfew and similar bans and restrictions on teens’ access to public places are a key test of Haidt’s and his After Babel followers’ seriousness about reducing nanny culture. Will they spend their considerable media and political capital to speak out against curfews, chaperonings, and other interferences with teens’ “risky, unsupervised” public lives?

My guess is: they won’t. I’ve argued that nannying crusades to ban or restrict teens from public, like those to ban or restrict teens from social media and smartphones, have nothing to do with teens’ safety, physical or mentally. No one seems to care if they actually work or even do harm.

Rather, nanny-bans are solely about two things: (a) making grownups “feel good” by exonerating our behaviors from culpability for teens’ poor mental health and dangers, and (b) suppression and control implemented by restricting teens to limited, adult-approved spaces, expressions, communications, and information that won’t rattle grownups’ cages. Congress members made that goal explicit when they voted to force TikTok divestiture because young people were accessing forbidden information on Israel-Palestine.

If the nanny-banishers prove me wrong about their true intentions and goals, I’ll be delighted to admit it.