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Is there an alternative to banning children from social media?

Since the rise of smartphones, young people do appear to be suffering a rise in mental health issues that cannot be attributed solely to increased awareness

In the US, young teens spent on average 3.5 hours a day on social media in 2021. Photograph: PA

Henry Mance
Thu May 16 2024 - 05:45

Social psychologist Sonia Livingstone has pushed back at limits on children’s screentime, arguing that phones and tablets offer benefits as well as risks

The debate on children’s use of smartphones can veer towards two extremes. There are those who see a generation made fragile by technology. They point to studies showing that social media does not just correlate with poor mental health; it causes it. Their solutions, lucidly expressed by American writer Jonathan Haidt, include banning under-16s from social media, prohibiting smartphones in schools and a new emphasis on risky, physical play.

The other extreme sees this as another misguided moral panic, such as the one once aimed at video games. Links to children’s mental health are unclear, argue Haidt’s critics. Even if teenagers’ phone use were damaging, it probably could not be radically curtailed anyway, given how essential social media has become to adolescence.

But there are possibilities for nuance and compromise. Sonia Livingstone is, like Haidt, a social psychologist. She leads research at the London School of Economics into children’s digital lives. Working with campaigner Baroness Beeban Kidron, Livingstone was influential in the UK’s groundbreaking 2023 Online Safety Act, which established that tech companies have a duty of care towards their users.

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Livingstone has pushed back at limits on children’s screentime: it matters more what children do on screens, and in what context, rather than for how long. Phones and tablets offer benefits as well as risks.

Children’s mental health is complex: by singling out tech for damaging Gen Z, Haidt “is making an overdramatic claim. But I don’t think anyone would say that the way people use the phone has no impact on mental health. Many young people I interview say it makes their lives worse.”

Livingstone’s research has led her to focus on two points. One is to try to constrain the tech companies whose “business model is driving the competitive search for children’s attention in a way that disempowers parents or teachers or anyone else”. Thirty years ago, Microsoft gently nudged users’ curiosity, asking: “Where do you want to go today?” These days TikTok pushes endless clips at kids.

After “wasting two decades” expecting tech companies to regulate themselves, the UK can finally, through the Online Safety Act, impose strict rules.

“We could turn off autoplay,” says Livingstone. “It would kill TikTok’s business model, and maybe TikTok could think again. Children say to me: you end up doomscrolling, an hour or three hours has gone.”

Livingstone’s other focus is to look for ways to empower young people and parents. “You won’t find a child who says, ‘Lock me in a room with my phone, and I’ll be happy and grow up well.’” The UK government supports schools introducing smartphone bans, and a Norwegian study concluded such bans improve grades and reduce bullying. But overall academic research on the subject “is pretty sparse and not terribly conclusive”.

All the talk of rules cuts down the idea that parents can trust their children to make some good decisions sometimes

—  Sonia Livingstone

Instead schools could “consult [students]. They will say, no phones in class. Let’s have some lunchtimes without phones, but don’t make me take it out of my pocket because my mum might have an urgent message.” Teenagers “do value the creation of spaces where they look at each other and talk to each other”. But they also “want human flexibility”.

Strict rules often conflict with reality. In homes with little parental supervision, smartphones may offer children intellectual enrichment, says Livingstone. Even recommendations of no screentime an hour before bed may be unsuitable for young people who use apps to help them sleep.

“All the talk of rules cuts down the idea that parents can trust their children to make some good decisions sometimes.” Heavy-handed bans that prevent children from participating in society “will breed resentment and conflict”. What we should offer is better defaults and more advice. “We’re terrified of giving guidance, and parents are desperate for guidance.”

Since the rise of smartphones, young people do appear to be suffering a rise in mental health issues that cannot be attributed solely to increased awareness. Self-harm and suicide have risen sharply among US and UK youths since 2010 (although suicides have fallen in countries including France). PISA surveys show worldwide increases in loneliness among 15-year-olds.

“The historical account that I find most convincing is that there has been a shift postwar from externalising problems to internalising problems,” says Livingstone. “Yes, we see increased loneliness, increased mental health problems, increased self-harm, and so on. But we see reduced young people in conflict with the law, reduced alcohol [consumption], reduced teenage pregnancy, reduced being bad on the streets. We see a very cautious generation who are taking the trouble more inwards.”

Young people “feel the older generation has let them down”; they tell Livingstone the phone is their source of news but also of misinformation, anxiety and disempowerment. “It’s overwhelming them but they are held responsible, and there’s nothing they can do.”

Haidt labels those born after 1996 “the anxious generation”. But the anxiety arguably started with generations of parents who refused to let their children play outside. In the 1990s, Livingstone highlighted the rise in children having TV in their bedrooms. Children told her they would have preferred to be outside, but were not allowed.

But aren’t smartphones and social media fundamentally more challenging than TV or video games? In the US, young teens spent on average 3.5 hours a day on social media in 2021. In the UK, a quarter of five- to seven-year-olds own a smartphone, and 30 per cent of the same age group use TikTok, according to communications regulator Ofcom.

Many parents are sympathetic to alarmism, because they see their kids hooked on messaging and video apps. They know how difficult it is for teens to disconnect from school, because the group chat follows them everywhere.

“Kids aren’t able to disconnect – really?” says Livingstone. “I watched a school let out at 4pm the other day – chat, chat, chat, and not a phone in sight.”

[ ‘TikTok keeps me up all night’: Ireland’s teenagers on their relationship with the social media app ]

Like Haidt, she wants children to have more opportunities to play outside: for example, through parks and youth centres. But she advises against unrealistic standards on screen use: it’s fine to give toddlers a phone to occupy them when they are tired. At the same time, parents should try to set an example in how they use their own smartphones. And they shouldn’t track their kids via GPS: “It’s the end of child-parent trust.”

She recommends parents nudge kids towards positive online experiences. “Look for the resources that say ‘10 fun things to do with your child online’. There’s a tonne of resources out there, but they’re not pushed to you.”

Her research shows the problems facing families: even when parents establish rules for toddlers, they find it hard to stick to them, especially with second and third children. Once it’s in the house, social media is, like the tiger who came to tea, hard to constrain.

Here Livingstone highlights the role of regulators. Ofcom is likely “the most technically proficient and well-resourced communications regulator anywhere”. Last week it outlined its draft approach to regulating platforms’ addictive and harmful features.

Ofcom will “probably be effective” in reducing children’s exposure to pornography and self-harm. “They might get traction with the algorithms that push you from ‘I’m worried about my weight’ to ‘how to get a tummy tuck’. That would be a big win.”

Just like for the obesity crisis, there isn’t the one thing we could do. But there might be the 10 things that we could do

—  Sonia Livingstone

The regulator wants sites to have “robust age checks”. The UK previously abandoned attempts at age verification, which might have required, for example, all adults to provide their credit card details in order to access porn sites. Livingstone predicts the idea may be revived. “Many people think it’s coming.”

There are other issues, for example with kids being overwhelmed by large group chats. Feeling political heat, WhatsApp owner Meta has made changes, such as making it easier for children to block messages from outside their contacts. But progress is mixed: this year, the company lowered the minimum age for WhatsApp from 16 to 13 in the EU and the UK “not because any psychologist said 13 is a good age for kids to use WhatsApp but because they are falling in line with other platforms being 13 and they can use the data to make a profit”.

Livingstone wants companies to be more responsive to parents with concerns, and for gaming companies to stop letting children spend real money in games. Ideally, policy would be based on evidence. But tech moves fast, platforms are reluctant to share data, and parents want action now, so a precautionary approach may be justified. Controls are also not absolute. Even when phones are banned from classrooms, students still use laptops and tablets. “A mobile phone ban is not a tech-free classroom, and is not a screen-free life.”

Shouldn’t policymakers feel frustrated that research is disputed on what is causing youth anxiety? “Just like for the obesity crisis, there isn’t the one thing we could do. But there might be the 10 things that we could do,” Livingstone says. “Partly this is a problem of social science generally. Human beings are not billiard balls on a table.” - Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024

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