\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he quickest way to make being online safer for children and teens would be to kick all adult men off the internet, the Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers believes. Men are the biggest perpetrators of sextortion and most likely to spread misinformation, she says.<\/p>\n Odgers is not recommending this as a policy for governments to adopt: \u201cThat would be crazy, right? It would be unfair.\u201d But she is on a drive to puncture the prevailing narrative that the best way to address online harms is a social media ban for teenagers.<\/p>\n Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist and bestselling author of The Anxious Generation, last week said he had done \u201can amazing job\u201d at keeping his children away from social media, telling BBC Radio 4 that his 16-year-old daughter has yet to sign up: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want it. She sees what it did to the other girls.\u201d<\/p>\n By contrast, Odgers, a professor of developmental psychology who has studied adolescent mental health for 25 years, takes a different approach. She gave both her children smartphones when they turned 11 and let her daughter start using Snapchat at the same age.<\/p>\n She thinks politicians and parents are worrying about the wrong things when they point to social media as the primary explanation for a growing mental health crisis among young people. She is frustrated by the global race to remove phones from schools and to ban social media for under-16s. She was \u201cdisappointed\u201d when the UK announced it would follow Australia in implementing a ban.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018They\u2019ll be using it whether we want them to or not\u2019 … 11-year-olds in Australia.<\/span> Photograph: Rick Rycroft\/AP<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s becoming increasingly clear to me that bans are likely to make things worse, not better,\u201d Odgers says via a video call from her home in Los Angeles, where she teaches at the University of California, Irvine. Odgers\u2019 analysis of the evidence makes her doubtful whether children\u2019s brains have been rewired by mobile phones and certain that there is limited data to support the idea that social media is driving a dip in adolescent mental health.<\/p>\n Odgers and Haidt are scientists who have spent years reading the same studies, yet come to starkly different conclusions. Is it a bit mean of them to haul their teenage children into the spotlight to illustrate their contrasting perspectives on a raging debate on the dangers of digital childhood? Perhaps. But explaining how they incorporate research into their family lives is a convenient shorthand that takes us to the heart of a complex issue.<\/p>\n Haidt\u2019s book has sold more than 2m copies in 44 languages since it was published two years ago. His theory of the \u201cgreat rewiring of childhood\u201d, the book\u2019s subtitle, has inspired parents to campaign for smartphone bans at schools and helped drive the political debate over age restrictions on social media use.<\/p>\n Despite her impressive academic qualifications, Odgers does not yet have Haidt\u2019s international reach. Her recently released Ted Talk, \u201cWhat we\u2019re getting wrong about kids and tech\u201d, may help to change that. \u201cScary stories sell; they always have,\u201d she tells the audience, in a nod to Haidt\u2019s success. \u201cAnd scary stories are really easy to sell to parents. We\u2019re an anxious lot.\u201d Odgers is cheerful and funny during the talk, reminding her listeners not to be too nostalgic for their own childhoods (she crashed her car and drank excessively as a teen, she says). She points out that teenage pregnancies have plummeted and that modern adolescents are better educated and less violent than their parents\u2019 generation. \u201cTeenagers today are amazing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Since 2008, Odgers has been working with 10- to 14-year-olds, extracting information every day from their phones, to analyse how they spend their time and how they are feeling. \u201cWith their consent, we look at their school records, we track their sleep data, we look at their step count and we see what they\u2019re doing online,\u201d she tells her Ted audience.<\/p>\n <\/span>Jonathan Haidt, whose book about the \u2018great rewiring of childhood\u2019 takes a different tack.<\/span> Photograph: Dia Dipasupil\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Odgers and Haidt agree that adolescent mental health has deteriorated, but Odgers sees a wide range of causes \u2013 the recession, rising adult mental health issues, the Covid pandemic and, in the US, opioid addiction. \u201cThe identification of social media as the culprit, as the biggest predictor of all the things that we worry about in our kids, is misleading, because it doesn\u2019t show up that way in the vast majority of studies,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it sucks all the air out of the room in terms of thinking about solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n In a review of Haidt\u2019s book in Nature, Odgers wrote: \u201cHundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations.\u201d The available data suggests correlation rather than causation, she argued. Haidt has since told the Guardian: \u201cThere\u2019s not a single word that indicates that she read past chapter one.\u201d She tells me that she read the book from cover to cover.<\/p>\n A discussion between Haidt and Odgers hosted by the University of Virginia in October 2024 is well worth watching. \u201cI guess my question to you, Jon, is: why do you think the majority of social scientists actually working in this field disagree with you on this?\u201d says Odgers. Haidt hits back later: \u201cYou\u2019d be crazy to let your daughter engage in something that doubles or triples her risk for depression.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s not what that [research] tells you, Jon. You need to stop telling people it doubles or triples your risk,\u201d Odgers replies, but Haidt continues: \u201cCandice, I would just ask you, how old is your daughter and would you have let her on Instagram and Snapchat at the age of 10 or 11?\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markThe identification of social media as the culprit is misleading \u2013 it doesn\u2019t show up that way in the vast majority of studies<\/p>\n Parents around the world have seized on Haidt\u2019s arguments about what he calls the \u201cindustrial-scale harm\u201d caused by social media because his thesis chimes with their own worries, says Odgers. \u201cHe needs about five seconds to convince people of his argument because it so fits with their priors. I need about 15 minutes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She quotes the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in the US, which convened an expert committee and spent a year looking at the impact of social media on child and adolescent health. It concluded: \u201cContrary to the current cultural narrative that social media is universally harmful to adolescents, the reality is more complicated.\u201d She is not alone in her scepticism about some of the claims being made for the link between children\u2019s mental health and their use of social media, but she notes that \u201cvery few people speak up because there is a cost to speaking up\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe assumption is that I\u2019m somehow a shill for big tech, which is absurd,\u201d she says. For the past three years, journalists have been making freedom of information requests for her emails, searching in vain for evidence that she has been funded by tech companies (she says her funding comes from US federal agencies and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research).<\/p>\n Social media, she argues, is \u201cone of the least influential factors\u201d in teen depression and anxiety; girls who are already depressed go on to use social media more, not the other way around, she says. The risk of cyberbullying is another frequently cited justification for a ban, but Odgers points to studies showing that most children who are being bullied online are also being bullied offline. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that cybervictimisation is not harmful, but if we only focus on that, we\u2019re missing a huge part of the picture. The most likely place for children to be harmed is in their home, in schools, in their communities, by people they trust.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018All this energy could be going into building things versus banning things.\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Jessica Pons\/The Guardian<\/p>\n She understands why some politicians want to take a cautious, safety-first approach by limiting access to sites such as Instagram and TikTok. \u201cBut don\u2019t make these decisions out of fear, by someone telling you that this is the major cause of suicide and of depression,\u201d she says. \u201cWe would not accept this level of evidence for other things that harm our children or take our children\u2019s lives. I would want a paediatric oncologist to correct the record if someone was saying that purple dye was the major cause of childhood leukaemia.\u201d<\/p>\n Although she is accused of being soft on tech companies, Odgers is very clear that the platforms need tighter regulation. \u201cWe need to prosecute the perpetrators of online harm and the tech companies that allow horrible things \u2013 sextortion, image-based abuse,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s horrific for women and for girls \u2013 they are 80% to 90% of the victims and tech company owners and developers are 90% male, so we\u2019ve got this fundamental problem in terms of protecting women and girls online.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to TechScape<\/span><\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n But she believes a ban will not work because teenagers will find ways to get around it. She points to research published last month in the British Medical Journal that found more than 85% of under-16s in Australia who participated in a study said they were still using social media three months after the ban came into force. \u201cThey are going to be using it regardless of whether we want them to or not,\u201d says Odgers. \u201cThe more we make it a forbidden place to spend time, the less likely they are going to tell us what\u2019s happening in those spaces, the less likely they will be to report harms, the less likely we will be to help them. I am worried that we will make things worse by pushing them into less safe and less regulated spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n Implementing a ban risks politicians and policy \u201cdeclaring victory in this space when we\u2019ve done very little on the ground to help young people\u201d, she says. She is particularly vexed by the misplaced use of resources spent on special pouches to prevent the devices from being accessed during the school day. She thinks the money could be better spent on funding more teachers and school counsellors and creating safe spaces that are welcoming for teenagers: \u201cAll this energy could be going into building things versus banning things.\u201d Restrictions on social media, she adds, do nothing to address the looming question of how to help children develop a healthy relationship with artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n Haidt had a more upbeat take on the Australia research in his Radio 4 interview last week. \u201cImagine if we could just pass a law and smoking or drinking or drug use would drop by 30% or 40%. Would that be a massive failure or would that be an incredible success?\u201d he asked. Other supporters of a ban argue that it is an important repositioning of attitudes towards digital behaviour and will slowly nudge people towards cutting their time online.<\/p>\n Odgers had a free-range rural childhood in Canada, played a lot of sport and has coached youth basketball. She is not personally very enthusiastic about social media and she says she let her daughter use Snapchat only as a way to support friends who lived far away and had recently been bereaved. But she argues that comparing the use of social media to smoking is unhelpful. \u201cFor some people, it\u2019s a support community. Tech isn\u2019t really like tobacco. Its effects go in all directions.\u201d<\/p>\n The UK government announced this week that 16- and 17-year-olds would be encouraged to observe a midnight to 6am social media curfew as part of its drive to protect them from online harms including exhaustion caused by night-time scrolling. Critics have noted that the curfew will not be mandatory. Odgers\u2019 response to concerns about adolescents\u2019 time and energy being wasted by addictive algorithms is that governments should be building better communities and physical spaces for children to play and learn; this could be funded, she says, \u201cwith a big old tax on tech\u201d.<\/p>\n These arguments playing out among academics make untangling the science near impossible for parents. In just the past week, the EU pledged to introduce a social media ban, and the Atlantic published an article explaining how the distractions of AI, digital devices and social media had eroded people\u2019s reading habits, heralding the dawn of a \u201cpost-literacy\u201d era.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Oxford-based youth mental health research initiative BrainWaves set out research showing that the longer young people spend on social media, the stronger the impact it has on their depression and anxiety levels. The same research also highlighted that people who use social media for recreational and social purposes can see a positive impact on their mental health, while those who turn to it with \u201charmful motivation\u201d will see a negative effect on their wellbeing. It can feel hard to keep up.<\/p>\n \u201cThe evidence is really mixed,\u201d says Peter Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University who sits on the UK government\u2019s Expert Panel for Growing Up in an Online World and who wrote a book on the impact of screen time, Unlocked, which came out shortly before Haidt\u2019s. Etchells, speaking in a personal capacity and not as part of the panel, says he is glad that Odgers stepped into a space that many academics are wary of entering.<\/p>\n On Haidt, he says: \u201cIt\u2019s wild that one person has been so influential on a global scale. That\u2019s not a criticism of him, but it\u2019s good to take a step back and register that this is just one book that is driving legislation in lots of places. If we really care about getting this right, we need to have some uncomfortable conversations: what if this person is wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n Most scientists agree that tech companies need to be held more accountable; the disagreement lies in finding the most effective route to that, he says: \u201cIt\u2019s such a heated debate and it\u2019s very emotive. It often gets reduced to a binary: a social media ban or nothing. It can be frustrating, because the moment you start talking about nuance, people start saying: \u2018You must be funded by big tech.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Odgers says she wants to hear more from young people. \u201cI\u2019m nobody\u2019s friend in this fight other than kids\u2019. I\u2019m a massive nerd who works with data and kids and I have spent my entire life trying to help and understand them. I\u2019m not leading a movement.\u201d<\/p>\n The global disapproval of teenagers\u2019 use of tech needs to be tempered by an understanding that it is going to remain a core part of their culture, she argues. The culture of blaming parents who allow their children time on devices is also unhelpful. \u201cIf I can get 15 minutes with parents and policymakers, the argument becomes much more nuanced. Parents actually breathe a sigh of relief. They can make all the decisions they want to about how tech-free or tech-full they want to be, based on their values and what they want for their family \u2013 but they don\u2019t have to make it with this threat that it\u2019s going to lead to horrible outcomes for their children.\u201d<\/p>\n In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/em><\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The quickest way to make being online safer for children and teens would be to kick all adult men off the internet, the Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers believes. Men are the biggest perpetrators of sextortion and most likely to spread misinformation, she says. Odgers is not recommending this as a policy for governments to adopt:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[493,25007,37,146,205,1031,25008,364,24370,204,812,6930,801],"class_list":{"0":"post-51175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-bans","9":"tag-candice","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-kids","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-mental","14":"tag-odgers","15":"tag-people","16":"tag-psychologist","17":"tag-social","18":"tag-tech","19":"tag-worse","20":"tag-young"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}