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Kids love staring at their phones so much they don't want to do anything else, right?

An explosive new Harris Poll finds that that is an urban (and suburban and rural) myth. What kids ages 8 to 12 REALLY want to do is hang out together in real life -- with no adults hovering and no screens.

They go online because that's the only place they can meet up and have fun without constant adult supervision. Being glued to screens is their DEFAULT, not their DESIRE.

In an Aug. 4 Atlantic piece I cowrote with Jonathan Haidt ("The Anxious Generation" author and my Let Grow cofounder) and Zach Rausch (director of the Tech and Society Lab at New York University), we discuss a survey we conducted with the Harris Poll. It asked 500 kids ages 8 to 12 to pick their favorite way to spend time with friends.

The choices:

A) Unstructured play, like pickup basketball, or exploring the neighborhood.

B) Adult-led activities, like ballet or soccer.

C) Socializing online.

Result?

It wasn't even close. Kids desperately want to meet up in person. They voted 45% for unstructured play -- no tutus, trophies or internet required -- versus 30% for adult-organized activities and just 25% for playing online.

Basically, kids want an old-fashioned, "Stranger Things," free-range childhood! But the survey also told us that this is almost an impossible dream because kids are rarely allowed any free, unsupervised time.

The poll found that:

-- Most kids are not allowed to be without an adult in public spaces (street, park, playground, stores).

-- Most have rarely or never walked around without an adult.

-- Fewer than half of 8- or 9-year-olds have even been to another aisle at the grocery on their own.

-- More than a quarter of the 8- and 9-year-olds -- and one in five of the older kids -- aren't even allowed to play in their own front yard!

Our kids are growing up on lockdown. Their childhoods are strangely adult when it comes to tech but infantilized when it comes to real life. For instance, the poll found that more kids ages 8 and 9 have talked to an artificial-intelligence chatbot than have ever used a sharp knife.

You might think we blame parents for this, but we don't. We blame the fears, social norms and laws that have made micromanagement seem like a wise way to raise kids.

But is it? Kids are more depressed than ever, according to the surgeon general. So are parents. Today's childhood isn't working well for anyone.

The saving grace for kids -- and the thing driving adults crazy -- is that one escape hatch beckons: the screen! Kids who never even bought a Hershey's bar on their own can conquer entire kingdoms online and talk with everyone from school friends to people in other countries.

We keep nagging at kids to get off their devices, but why would they? We give them so few real-life alternatives. Nearly three-quarters of the kids in the Harris Poll agreed, "I would spend less time online if there were more friends in my neighborhood to play with in person."

Obviously, technology is attractive. But kids have a strong, almost Darwinian desire to play and roam the way most of us adults did.

Let Grow, the nonprofit I helm, is dedicated to making that kind of childhood easy, normal and legal again. Our free programs for schools and parents encourage real-world independence and free play. And the "Reasonable Childhood Independence" laws we've helped pass in 11 states affirm the right of kids to play outside, walk to school, etc., unsupervised -- without their parents getting investigated for neglect.

It's not fair to blame kids for being online when we don't let them go almost anywhere else. And so, our Atlantic piece says:

"If parents want their kids to put down their phones, they need to open the front door."

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Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a contributing writer at Reason.com, and author of "Has the World Gone Skenazy?" To learn more about Lenore Skenazy (Lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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