14 or 16, or None at All?

Jonathan Haidt calls 2010–2015 the "great rewiring" of childhood, when play-based life gave way to phone-based life. Candice Odgers counters in Nature that the evidence is correlation, not causation. Oxford's Andrew Przybylski found screen time explained less variance in teen well-being than eating potatoes. This book cuts through the stalemate with a decision framework: not "what age?" but "which rung?" A graduated ladder from dumb phone to messaging to social media, climbed one step at a time through a family contract written together.

You'll learn:

- The three readiness signals that matter more than birthdays

- How collective action among five families dissolves "I'm the only one"

- Why the no-punishment disclosure clause is the contract's heart