Go out and play: Take away the phones, and then what?

It's not enough to ban cellphones at school and limit screen time at home, argues Seth Kaplan on After Babel. Children need opportunities to go out and play in their neighborhoods.

Once, Scouts, recreation-league teams, Boys & Girls Clubs, church youth fellowships, 4-H chapters, and informal play groups gave millions of American children the chance "to be together without screens, without hovering parents, and without performance pressure," writes Kaplan, a Johns Hopkins lecturer. Youth community groups let children build "independence, responsibility and connection."

Yet youth organizations have lost most of their members. "The Boy Scouts of America, for example, counted more than four million youth members in the early 1970s but has fallen to roughly one million today. Girl Scouts membership peaked at over 3.7 million in the early 2000s and has since declined to around 1.7 million." Declines began decades before the advent of smartphones, writes Kaplan.

"Adolescents involved in community-based activities demonstrate higher levels of civic engagement, lower rates of risky behavior, and stronger social and emotional skills, according to research on structured extracurricular participation," he writes. Playing in local sports leagues — not elite travel clubs — "has been linked to improved teamwork, persistence, and mental well-being."

It's especially valuable when children play in mixed-age groups, research shows. "Older kids learn patience and leadership, while younger kids learn courage and imitation," writes Kaplan.

Young people say they'd rather play together in the real world than on screens, he concludes. They need the chance to do so.

Instead of trying to get anxious, lonely or depressed teenagers into therapy, doctors should "prescribe" out-of-the-house activities, write Sean Geraghty and Mike Goldstein, co-founders of the Center For Teen Flourishing. "Behavioral activation" could be singing in a choir, taking a cooking class, playing soccer, gardening or walking. It could be an after-school job.

Exercise is just as effective as therapy or medication for people with depression and anxiety, research shows.