{"id":3562,"date":"2024-09-18T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/?p=3562"},"modified":"2024-09-25T00:21:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T00:21:48","slug":"what-if-the-panic-over-teens-and-tech-is-totally-wrong-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/2024\/09\/18\/what-if-the-panic-over-teens-and-tech-is-totally-wrong-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What if the panic over teens and tech is totally wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A

As a growing number of schools ban phones to protect kids online, Congress is considering the most significant internet regulations in decades. | Klaus Vedfelt\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rich Johnston, a father of two school-aged children in Atlanta, thought AOL Instant Messenger was bad enough. Johnston recently told me that \u201caway messages screwed with people\u2019s brains,\u201d stressed them out. The self-identified elder millennial also loves the fire hose of information that is X, formerly Twitter, and yes, he knows that\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019ve got Snapchat and TikTok and Instagram, and that\u2019s got to be worse in 10 years,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the terrifying part of bringing a kid up in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one who feels this way. There\u2019s now a nationwide and rather panicked push to keep smartphones out of kids\u2019 hands and teens off of social media, pointing to a correlation<\/a> between young people spending more time online and an increase in mental health problems. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy even called for warning labels<\/a> on social media platforms earlier this year. <\/p>\n

This week that panic reached a tipping point. <\/p>\n

Congress on Wednesday came one step closer<\/a> to passing the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA)<\/a>, as tech companies scramble to get ahead of what would be the most significant internet regulation in decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And just a day before that bill was set to be marked up in the House, Meta announced it was revamping Instagram<\/a> with a new effort called Teen Accounts, which makes accounts of users under 18 private by default, restricts notifications at night, and gives parents options to supervise their kids. It\u2019s not exactly taking Instagram away from teens, but it could dramatically change how they use it. This is the latest move by social media companies to make their platforms a bit less, well, terrifying for parents. YouTube and Snapchat made similar announcements<\/a> this month. <\/p>\n

Whether these developments will actually be good for kids remains an open question.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

This is all happening against a backdrop where seven states have passed bans in schools<\/a>, and another 14 are considering bans. There\u2019s also a wave of cultural pressure, intensified by NYU professor Jonathan Haidt<\/a>, whose latest book, The Anxious Generation<\/em>, rallies parents to work together<\/a> to \u201cswim against the tide of ever-increasing screen time.\u201d One of his collaborators, psychologist Jean Twenge, was one of the first to sound the alarm about the link between youth mental health and time online back in 2017 when she asked in an Atlantic essay, \u201cHave smartphones destroyed a generation?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

To be clear, researchers like Haidt and Twenge aren\u2019t suggesting we simply ban kids from ever touching a smartphone or scrolling through a social media feed. We don\u2019t actually know how such bans or even changes in policy would affect youth mental health. Meanwhile, the school phone bans that have been sweeping the nation<\/a> don\u2019t govern what parents do at home. We are, however, starting to use the phrase \u201cphone ban\u201d a lot more than we used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear that talk of a ban as a kind of howl of despair, really, that we\u2019ve lost control,\u201d said Sonia Livingstone<\/a>, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, who has been studying kids and tech for decades. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost control of the feed from the companies, and we\u2019ve lost control of our education and our health and our family life by accepting \u2014 as part of whatever kind of Faustian contract \u2014 the infrastructure of commerce.\u201d <\/p>\n

In other words, we\u2019re letting the tech companies win. <\/p>\n

Companies like Meta make money by getting their users to engage more with their products, so they can collect data about them and sell targeted ads accordingly. Instagram\u2019s new Teen Accounts might make parents feel like they have a bit more control over how their kids factor into these transactions, but their kids\u2019 attention is still the product. <\/p>\n

KOSPA, however, targets the business models of social media platforms. The legislation, which combines the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teen\u2019s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), would ban targeted advertising to minors, allow users to turn off algorithmic sorting in their feeds, and bumps the minimum age requirement for online accounts from 13 to 17. It would also create a so-called \u201cduty of care\u201d for social media companies that would make them liable for harmful content on their platforms. The definition of what constitutes harmful content is still being hammered out in the bill\u2019s language<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t yet know the fate of KOSPA. Its predecessor, KOSA, passed the Senate in July with a vote of 93 in favor, 3 opposed. Tech companies and their lobbyists have been arguing against it<\/a>, as have free speech advocates who believe it will open the door to censorship<\/a>. Combined with whatever self-regulation social media platforms decide to do, such sweeping legislation could make it a little less terrifying to raise kids in our increasingly digital world. But it hardly guarantees an end to the youth mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

\n

Kids can learn healthy media habits \u2014 and you can too<\/h2>\n

The internet, like parenting, does not come with an instruction manual. There are, however, resources available to help parents and children<\/a> develop healthy media habits. <\/p>\n

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has an entire portal dedicated to kids and tech<\/a>. A good starting point is the 5 Cs of Media Use<\/a> \u2014 Child, Content, Calm, Crowding Out, and Communication \u2014 that help you evaluate the specific needs of your child. The AAP points out<\/a> that although we\u2019re accustomed to safety standards for childrens\u2019 products, such regulations don\u2019t currently exist for tech. \u201cThis means that kids are using platforms and apps that might have been designed<\/a> for adults \u2014 not kids at their different stages of development,\u201d according to the AAP.<\/p>\n

Parents should also follow basic guidelines for healthy digital media use<\/a>, like turning off notifications, avoiding screens before bed, limiting social media use, and just putting your phone away sometimes. You can live without looking at it for longer than you think.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To do that, Livingstone told me, we should study the causes of youth mental health problems, rather than focus on the consequences of screen time. Linda Charmaraman<\/a>, founder and director of the Youth, Media, and Wellbeing Lab at Wellesley College, pointed to the surgeon general\u2019s call for warnings on social media platforms as a sign of \u201ca little bit of a hysterical panic.\u201d She also said that solving the mental health problem will require more than a crackdown on smartphone use.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want something to stop that rise of mental illness as if this was going to be the magic bullet,\u201d Charmaraman said. \u201cI think it could actually cause people to not look at the other root causes of mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the kids, after all, who are having a hard time navigating life online. Surgeon General Murthy in August issued an advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents<\/a>, and with it, the hand-wringing over kids and tech starts to resemble an ouroboros of anxiety<\/a>. In a New York Times essay<\/a> about the advisory, Murthy even points to \u201cthe impact of social media on youth mental health\u201d as a source of mental health challenges for parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cStress, loneliness and exhaustion can easily affect people\u2019s mental health and well-being,\u201d Murthy wrote. \u201cAnd we know that the mental health of parents has a direct impact on the mental health of children.\u201d<\/p>\n

No wonder everyone\u2019s feeling panicky. As Congress bands together to take aim at kids\u2019 safety online and give parents more control over what their children see and do online, parents are stuck in a feedback loop. They\u2019re stressed out by the child care crisis<\/a> that Congress still won\u2019t solve<\/a>. They\u2019re suffering through a loneliness epidemic<\/a> with no end in sight<\/a>. A 2022 Harvard study found<\/a> that 20 percent of mothers and 15 percent of fathers reported anxiety, compared to 18 percent of teens. And almost 40 percent of teens said they were \u201csomewhat worried\u201d about their parents\u2019 mental health.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t yet know how changing the way social media works for kids will affect their mental health. There\u2019s a chance that turning off algorithmic feeds will reduce the risk that they\u2019re exposed to harmful content. It\u2019s certainly possible that getting rid of targeted ads will have a positive effect. Better privacy is bound to keep kids safer from strangers online. If nothing else, we\u2019ve at least started talking more about how these platforms work and could work better. And how we could feel better online and off.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t protect them from it forever,\u201d Johnston, the dad from Atlanta, said. \u201cSo you\u2019ve got to train them how to use it in a smart, safe, non-panic-inducing fashion as best you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story was also published in the Vox Technology newsletter. <\/em>Sign up here<\/a><\/em><\/strong> so you don\u2019t miss the next one!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a growing number of schools ban phones to protect kids online, Congress is considering the most significant internet regulations in decades. | Klaus Vedfelt\/Getty Images Rich Johnston, a father of two school-aged children in Atlanta, thought AOL Instant Messenger was bad enough. Johnston recently told me that \u201caway messages screwed with people\u2019s brains,\u201d stressed them out. The self-identified elder millennial also loves the fire hose of information that is X, formerly Twitter, and yes, he knows that\u2019s weird. \u201cNow we\u2019ve got Snapchat and TikTok and Instagram, and that\u2019s got to be worse in 10 years,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the terrifying part of bringing a kid up in this environment.\u201d He\u2019s not the only one who feels this way. There\u2019s now a nationwide and rather panicked push to keep smartphones out of kids\u2019 hands and teens off of social media, pointing to a correlation between young people spending more time online and an increase in mental health problems. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy even called for warning labels on social media platforms earlier this year.  This week that panic reached a tipping point.  Congress on Wednesday came one step closer to passing the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA), as tech companies scramble to get ahead of what would be the most significant internet regulation in decades.\u00a0 And just a day before that bill was set to be marked up in the House, Meta announced it was revamping Instagram with a new effort called Teen Accounts, which makes accounts of users under 18 private by default, restricts notifications at night, and gives parents options to supervise their kids. It\u2019s not exactly taking Instagram away from teens, but it could dramatically change how they use it. This is the latest move by social media companies to make their platforms a bit less, well, terrifying for parents. YouTube and Snapchat made similar announcements this month.  Whether these developments will actually be good for kids remains an open question. This is all happening against a backdrop where seven states have passed bans in schools, and another 14 are considering bans. There\u2019s also a wave of cultural pressure, intensified by NYU professor Jonathan Haidt, whose latest book, The Anxious Generation, rallies parents to work together to \u201cswim against the tide of ever-increasing screen time.\u201d One of his collaborators, psychologist Jean Twenge, was one of the first to sound the alarm about the link between youth mental health and time online back in 2017 when she asked in an Atlantic essay, \u201cHave smartphones destroyed a generation?\u201d To be clear, researchers like Haidt and Twenge aren\u2019t suggesting we simply ban kids from ever touching a smartphone or scrolling through a social media feed. We don\u2019t actually know how such bans or even changes in policy would affect youth mental health. Meanwhile, the school phone bans that have been sweeping the nation don\u2019t govern what parents do at home. We are, however, starting to use the phrase \u201cphone ban\u201d a lot more than we used to. \u201cI hear that talk of a ban as a kind of howl of despair, really, that we\u2019ve lost control,\u201d said Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, who has been studying kids and tech for decades. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost control of the feed from the companies, and we\u2019ve lost control of our education and our health and our family life by accepting \u2014 as part of whatever kind of Faustian contract \u2014 the infrastructure of commerce.\u201d  In other words, we\u2019re letting the tech companies win.  Companies like Meta make money by getting their users to engage more with their products, so they can collect data about them and sell targeted ads accordingly. Instagram\u2019s new Teen Accounts might make parents feel like they have a bit more control over how their kids factor into these transactions, but their kids\u2019 attention is still the product.  KOSPA, however, targets the business models of social media platforms. The legislation, which combines the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teen\u2019s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), would ban targeted advertising to minors, allow users to turn off algorithmic sorting in their feeds, and bumps the minimum age requirement for online accounts from 13 to 17. It would also create a so-called \u201cduty of care\u201d for social media companies that would make them liable for harmful content on their platforms. The definition of what constitutes harmful content is still being hammered out in the bill\u2019s language. We don\u2019t yet know the fate of KOSPA. Its predecessor, KOSA, passed the Senate in July with a vote of 93 in favor, 3 opposed. Tech companies and their lobbyists have been arguing against it, as have free speech advocates who believe it will open the door to censorship. Combined with whatever self-regulation social media platforms decide to do, such sweeping legislation could make it a little less terrifying to raise kids in our increasingly digital world. But it hardly guarantees an end to the youth mental health crisis. Kids can learn healthy media habits \u2014 and you can too The internet, like parenting, does not come with an instruction manual. There are, however, resources available to help parents and children develop healthy media habits.  The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has an entire portal dedicated to kids and tech. A good starting point is the 5 Cs of Media Use \u2014 Child, Content, Calm, Crowding Out, and Communication \u2014 that help you evaluate the specific needs of your child. The AAP points out that although we\u2019re accustomed to safety standards for childrens\u2019 products, such regulations don\u2019t currently exist for tech. \u201cThis means that kids are using platforms and apps that might have been designed for adults \u2014 not kids at their different stages of development,\u201d according to the AAP. Parents should also follow basic guidelines for healthy digital media use, like turning off notifications, avoiding screens before bed, limiting social media use, and just putting your phone away sometimes. You can live without looking at it for longer than you think. To do that, Livingstone told me, we should study the causes of youth mental health problems, rather than focus on the consequences of screen time. Linda Charmaraman, founder and director of the Youth, Media, and Wellbeing Lab at Wellesley College, pointed to the surgeon general\u2019s call for warnings on social media platforms as a sign of \u201ca little bit of a hysterical panic.\u201d She also said that solving the mental health problem will require more than a crackdown on smartphone use. \u201cPeople want something to stop that rise of mental illness as if this was going to be the magic bullet,\u201d Charmaraman said. \u201cI think it could actually cause people to not look at the other root causes of mental illness.\u201d It\u2019s not just the kids, after all, who are having a hard time navigating life online. Surgeon General Murthy in August issued an advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents, and with it, the hand-wringing over kids and tech starts to resemble an ouroboros of anxiety. In a New York Times essay about the advisory, Murthy even points to \u201cthe impact of social media on youth mental health\u201d as a source of mental health challenges for parents. \u201cStress, loneliness and exhaustion can easily affect people\u2019s mental health and well-being,\u201d Murthy wrote. \u201cAnd we know that the mental health of parents has a direct impact on the mental health of children.\u201d No wonder everyone\u2019s feeling panicky. As Congress bands together to take aim at kids\u2019 safety online and give parents more control over what their children see and do online, parents are stuck in a feedback loop. They\u2019re stressed out by the child care crisis that Congress still won\u2019t solve. They\u2019re suffering through a loneliness epidemic with no end in sight. A 2022 Harvard study found that 20 percent of mothers and 15 percent of fathers reported anxiety, compared to 18 percent of teens. And almost 40 percent of teens said they were \u201csomewhat worried\u201d about their parents\u2019 mental health. We don\u2019t yet know how changing the way social media works for kids will affect their mental health. There\u2019s a chance that turning off algorithmic feeds will reduce the risk that they\u2019re exposed to harmful content. It\u2019s certainly possible that getting rid of targeted ads will have a positive effect. Better privacy is bound to keep kids safer from strangers online. If nothing else, we\u2019ve at least started talking more about how these platforms work and could work better. And how we could feel better online and off. \u201cYou can’t protect them from it forever,\u201d Johnston, the dad from Atlanta, said. \u201cSo you\u2019ve got to train them how to use it in a smart, safe, non-panic-inducing fashion as best you can.\u201d A version of this story was also published in the Vox Technology newsletter. Sign up here so you don\u2019t miss the next one!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3564,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions\/3564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mobiledave.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}