What effect is screen time having on children? , peppermint

Two months ago Daisy Greenwell and Claire Fernyhough created a WhatsApp group to discuss how to reduce their young children’s demand for smartphones. When they posted about their plans on Instagram, other parents started joining in. Now their group, Smartphone-Free Childhood, has over 60,000 followers debating how to keep their kids away from demonic devices — a debate they’re conducting on their smartphones, naturally. own.

The UK-based group is not the only one concerned about children’s screen time. Last month the state of Florida passed a law banning social media for children under 14. The UK government is reportedly considering banning the sale of mobile phones to children under 16. These concerns are summarized in Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, “The Anxious Generation”, which argues that smartphones, and especially the social networks accessed through them, are causing the “reconstruction of childhood”. Are.

In a controversial debate two things are very clear. First, smartphones and social media have become a big part of childhood. According to research conducted in Britain, almost every child has a phone by the age of 12. Once they become aware of it, they spend most of their screen time on social media. According to Gallup surveys, American teens spend nearly five hours a day on social apps. YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are the most popular (Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is in fourth place).

Second, most people agree that the mental health of young people has declined in much of the rich world. The share of American teens reporting at least one “major depressive episode” in the past year has increased by more than 150% since 2010. Skeptics suggest that perhaps such words have become less taboo. But this is more than that. 17 In most rich countries, suicide among teenage girls and young women has increased sharply, although their suicide rates are the lowest of any group (see chart).

Are the events connected? The timing is indicative: As the popularity of smartphones and social apps grew in the 2010s, mental health began to decline. Some studies also show that children who spend more time on social media have worse mental health than light users. But such correlations do not prove causation: for example, it may be that sad, lonely children prefer to spend more time alone than happy ones.

A small number of randomized experimental studies have resolved the question of causation. In 2017 Roberto Mosquera of the Universidad de las Americas and colleagues asked a group of Facebook users in the US to stay off the platform for a week. The abstainers reported being less depressed and participating in more diverse activities than the control group; They also consumed less news.

In 2018, researchers from Stanford and New York University once again conducted a similar experiment in America. After a month off Facebook, their detoxes felt happier than the control group, spent less time online, spent more time with family and friends, and were less politically polarized. (Again, they knew less about the news, and spent more time watching television alone.) The effects on well-being were modest in both studies.

“The really solid causal evidence we have is quite limited,” admits Stanford University’s Matthew Gentzkow, one of the authors of the 2018 study. But, he argues, most points in the direction of circumstantial evidence around the time. “If you put it all together, I think it suffices to say that there is a substantial likelihood that these losses are large and real.”

Much remains uncertain. The best randomized experiments have been done on adults, who are not the main subject of concern. Most studies focus on Facebook, which makes up only a small part of teens’ media diets these days. And they’re mostly in the US, which is different from the countries where most of the world’s teenagers live. A study conducted last year by the Oxford Internet Institute across 72 countries found that Facebook adoption was associated with modest improvements in the health of young people.

People’s relationship with social media also goes beyond classification. The Mosquera experiment found that, although people said they were happier when they did not use Facebook, they still valued its usefulness by $67 per week – and, after a week of abstinence, those who detoxed gave it even more importance. Asking whether social media is good or bad for mental health is the wrong question, argues Pete Etchells of Bath Spa University, author of “Unlocked,” a somewhat upbeat book about screen time. Perhaps a better question, he says, is this: “Why is something like this [children] Do you really thrive online? And why is it that other people…really struggle?”

They fear that until that question is answered, banning phones or social media until a later age will delay the problem. It is also not clear what such a ban should include. Dr. Etchells explains that social media includes everything from Facebook to the chat functions of games like “Fortnite.” Dr. Gentzkow, who supports higher minimum ages for some social media, cautions against limiting all this. “Real communication with your friends” — by phone, text or video chat — “these might be things we want to encourage more,” he says. Most social apps offer a mix of functions that can be enjoyed or abused.

There are some signs that while experts are pondering how to rein in the worst of social media, ordinary users are also working out how to do so themselves. Posting about yourself publicly is becoming less common: According to Gartner, a research firm, last year only 28% of Americans said they enjoyed documenting their lives online, down from 40% in 2020 . Messages are moving from open networks to private chats. The company says more photos are now shared in direct messages on Instagram than in the main feed. As middle-aged people recognize the problems of the social networks they grew up with, young people may already be moving on.