Protecting youth from the potential negative mental health effects of social media is front and center in the mass media, in conversations around dinner tables, and in federal- and state-level bills.
I expect the biggest problem is the news. Teens are at the age when they really begin to see the world as a whole.
It's frustrating to me that none of the options are to turn off the algorithms various social media platforms use. Showing people a time ordered feed of the people they purposefully follow first with the option of discovery as something they have to click over to see might do wonders for a majority of all of us.
This is a good point. I looked at the list and thought that it didn't sound any worse than what was happening when I was a teen, but I didn't have the news thrown in my face every waking second of the day.
Scientists were warning about it during the Reagan administration, if not earlier. They were ignored and shouted down by corporate stooges. Just like now.
I'm not saying this is a fix for everything. My kids and their friends share a lot of very heavy stuff online because it affects them and their loved ones. There's no getting away from that.
Spoutible is one of the few social media sites that does not have an algorithm. What you see in your feed is what the people you follow posted. There are extra tabs where you can see a curated feed list and then an explore area where you see everything and can do searches. Facebook is the terrible. I will see things from 2 weeks ago in my feed and nothing from stuff posted yesterday from the people I follow. I have to go to each group to see what is going on.
This underlines why we all have a responsibility to avoid exaggerating risks in the NEWS. It does real harm.
For example much of the writing on climate change is almost deranged, implying that mass is extinction is likely. There is ZERO evidence for this. In reality, many of the measures being considered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (energy poverty, degrowth) will lead to millions of avoidable deaths.
None of that is true. The climate news is conservative, honestly. Extinctions are visibly beginning. As is land loss. Energy poverty and degrowth aren't being considered by anyone in power.
The only things the giant investments in changing our energy system will directly harm are legacy energy companies too narrow minded to diversify well. Of course it's true we'll likely find new ways to screw over the poor and at risk but that's not new. Ignoring things isn't going to help them, either. They're mostly having to deal with the most climate change problems already.
Energy poverty is already happening. Energy/electricity pricing have been rising relentlessly, which is slowing growth. Given the tight coupling between growth and life expectancy, this will kill millions.
We could have cheap clean energy if we made the regulations on nuclear power rational. They currently value a life lost to radioactivity at least 100 times more than a life lost to burning fossil and biofuels.
Making nuclear power so expensive forces us to use forms of energy that damage the environment.
Because people are unhappy about rising energy prices and the large environmental footprint of renewables, activists have sought to exaggerate the impacts of climate change to persuade voters to accept these policies.
Dr. Jetelina & Dr. Nesi, I am curious about your thoughts on Yondr phone pouches in high schools. My child's high school is implementing a Yondr pouch policy beginning this fall. Currently, each classroom has numbered phone"sleeves". Students are required to place their phone in a sleeve at the beginning of each class and they take it when they leave at the end. The sleeves are numbered so teachers can tell quickly whose phone is there and whose might be missing. However, my understanding is that some teachers enforce this rule and some don't (which I'm sure is par for the course in a large school).
The new policy would require each student to place their phone (also smartwatches and AirPods) in a locking pouch when they enter the building. It remains in the pouch for the entire day and staff members with handheld unlocking devices "free" the phones when students leave at the end of the day.
The reasoning for this is that students spend too much time on their phones and too little time interacting with each other and socializing. The administration believes that this will benefit students' mental health by creating a more inclusive environment, kids talking in the cafeteria instead of looking at phones, etc.
I have reservations about this (for a variety of reasons). I believe that it will further isolate the "fringe" kids. For some, lunch period is stressful because they don't have a group to sit with in the cafeteria. Those kids rely on their phones to have some outside interaction during an otherwise lonely time during the day. I know my son uses his phone sometimes to text friends whom he doesn't otherwise see in his classes, so they catch up, make plans for after school, etc. He would have less social time with those friends if he has no contact during the day.
I realize this isn't specifically related to social media because the phone is just a device -- lots of kids have phones and don't have social media. My kids (ages 17 and 12) both use phones for texting, Facetime with friends, and other purposes but neither has any social media apps or accounts (17yo isn't interested; 12yo asks but we're waiting).
However, our kids live in a digital world. I don't think literally locking up their phones during the day teaches them how to properly manage the digital environment. I want my kids to know when it is or is not appropriate to use their phone, and for what purposes. My 17-year-old checks his phone in between classes because the majority of their academic work is posted to Google Classroom (our district provides every student with a Chromebook), so he's always looking at his phone for Classroom notifications, changes to assignments, comments from teachers, etc. In addition, the groups and activities all communicate using apps like GroupMe or Discord. So, when club plans or after-school activities change, he receives that communication on his phone. I think preventing students from having any access will make things unduly burdensome without serving the intended purpose.
I would be so curious to hear your thoughts on phone use among kids, generally, even outside the social media context. As always, thank you for proving timely and data-driven information!
This is a tough question. A district near me is also instituting this. (Are you in Upstate NY, by chance?) I understand everything that you are saying. I also see the extreme harm and distraction phones cause. The kids cannot stay off them, no matter how many rules you put in place, and teachers become lenient because otherwise they would spend their entire class period policing phone use. And sometimes the worst offenders are parents who text and call their kids during class time. I know several college professors who ban phones in their classroom to improve the pass rate in their classes! I don't really know what the answer is.
In my city, the middle and high schools have places that kids can go during lunch - library, social workers office, certain teachers' classrooms - that are havens for the sort of kids you are describing. That doesn't solve the problem of communicating with friends who have different lunch periods, though.
I also know that social media is a big source of fights, and administration spot monitors it to figure out whether to expect big fights the next day, but that, of course, can take place after school hours as well.
I am in upstate NY (Capital Region). I can see both sides of this, for sure.
The phones don't belong in class. They should not be distracting students or disruptive to the educational process, nor should they be tools for cheating on tests (I know this is an issue).
There's definitely social media bullying that happens in my child's school (and every school, I imagine), but I am not sure locking phones for six hours a day changes that. I think the bullying will still happen in the other 18 hours.
I know there are places where the less popular kids can go at lunch, but I think many of them wouldn't seek refuge in a counselor's office or a teacher's classroom.
The admin says that the purpose of phone pouches is to encourage socializing. However, most of the kids in my son's school don't even have a lunch period! My child is very academically-oriented and he has a packed class schedule, but no lunch. I wanted him to take a lunch and he claimed that any kid who "cares about school" doesn't take a lunch period. He crams down a sandwich at the beginning of 5th period (in class) each day but does not have a lunch break, which I disagree with (but I pick my battles and I didn't force the issue).
The school knows that lots of kids don't have a lunch period. Is it an escape by the kids who are socially awkward? Maybe. But I think that if the school wants to encourage socializing (and even basics like nutrition and overall wellness), it should start by requiring students to have a lunch break. I think that's really, really important. I think that ensuring that everyone has a 40-minute break during the day to eat, do homework, socialize, etc. would go farther at creating the type of atmosphere they aspire to than locking the phones.
I have no idea if it's common or not that students in other schools don't take lunch. I think it's bonkers, personally, for a school to allow kids not to have a lunch/free period each day, but that's the way ours is.
My kids are in the Albany City School District. I can figure out what district you are in, and, yes, it is extremely common for kids in your district not to have a lunch period, and, no, it is not nearly as common in surrounding districts. I know kids in your district feel a lot of pressure to take as many courses as possible.
I wonder what YLE would say about the health consequences of kids not having any lunch break in school?
Yep, you know where I am because it's been on the news this week. There is a LOT of academic pressure... which, that's not new. Academic pressure has always been a thing, but college admissions is so competitive now, particularly with the moves toward being test-optional and post-covid... it's a lot.
But I definitely think there are health consequences (physical and mental) for kids not taking a lunch period. I very much wanted my child to have a lunch during the day but he *insisted* that no one does that. I even spoke with the guidance counselor about it and she just said, "Yeah, that's typical." Sigh. Not a good trend, at all. This is why I think the focus by the district is somewhat misplaced.
The other thing about the Yondr pouches is that parents (and students) are really worried about being unable to contact each other in an emergency. The school specifically doesn't want kids to have phone access in an emergency - one reason is that if there were an intruder in the building, safe hiding spots could be betrayed by phones buzzing or lighting up. I can understand that.
The other reason is that the district wants one point of information to parents (either from the district or the PD). Also understandable. They don't want kids texting their parents what's happening and potentially spreading untrue information or somehow making the situation worse and causing panic. However, it's a small community and rumors are rampant and spread like wildfire. If there were an emergency in the school and parents can't reach their kids to find out what's happening, 90% of parents are going to get in their cars and drive over there to get their kids. Also understandable because we're parents. But having thousands of parents showing up at the school or an evacuation site in an emergency DEFINITELY won't help. If a kid texts their parent and says, "I'm fine, I'm evacuated" then it would likely ease that type of congestion a bit.
That solution does seem like a lot of work and effort (plus easily bypassed by just placing in a burner phone/old iphone which nearly everyone I am sure has in their cupboards).
Why not simply ban use of phones in schools (my daughters Jr High does this - they get detention if caught using a phone - doesn't seem to be an issue).
The students all get locked Chromebooks/iPads anyway to go to Google Classroom, etc, does that not work in High School?
"However, our kids live in a digital world. I don't think literally locking up their phones during the day teaches them how to properly manage the digital environment."
That I completely agree with, though we are behind the curve on effectively knowing how to educate as this is all new to us too - any teacher over 42 didn't even have a cell phone during school including college.
At least in the district near where I live, they instituted this plan because it was less work than each individual teacher having to monitor and discipline, confiscating phones and bringing them to the office, making parents come in and get them. Plus teachers don't want the liability of touching a kid's $1,000 phone.
More seriously, I tutor high school kids (SAT/ACT). Based on their occasional and unprompted comments, most of them are aware of the following, if intermittently:
1. Carbon will eventually destroy their lives.
2. All adults know this, or should.
3. Almost nothing consequential—equal to the threat—is being done about it by those adults.
4. These same adults are pushing them to succeed in a future they are actively destroying.
I wonder if that plays a role. You note this possibility in your essay (but not nukes which is odd as we are nearly at midnight but denial of that threat is near-total). I say “intermittently” because this reality is too awful to live with 24/7—and not just for kids. But you can’t un-know it and denial has a psychic cost.
A friend of mine who just turned 80 is at least honest about it. He said he used to worry about all the horrors—and he gets them all—but he just gave up. He’s having a wonderful retirement. Suggested I do the same. Not, mind you, embrace the joy but keep fighting for what’s decent. Just, eh, whatever—playtime for me!
Beautiful mind > children, grandchildren, country, species, biosphere.
That is a level of utter sociopathy that I think is quite widespread. It’s why fascism is winning. They offer comforting delusions, especially of power, along with addictive sadism. Permission to be a monster with a beautiful mind, in the Barbara Bush sense.
The other option is facing reality, which is dire, and embracing sacrifice, which may come to naught anyway, for kids and the unborn.
Take a wild guess which option is more attractive—and which will become ever more so as things fall apart.
But I wonder to what extent this entirely obvious abandonment plays into the despair. This of course presumes the kids aren’t in as much functional denial as the adults. If not, it’s probably because well-off 53-year-olds like me think, with some justice, that we’ll escape the worst. If not, at least we will have lived a lot. Much easier to ignore reality when your own glutes aren’t on the line.
It's interesting to note that from 2019 - 2021 (i.e., the pandemic years), female high school students experienced a much bigger increase in "feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year."
Males went from appx 28% to 29% from 2019 to 2021, which is roughly flat
Females went from appx 45% to 58% from 2019 to 2021, which is a big increase
Yet even though high school females experience sadness and hopelessness at nearly twice the rate as males, males are much more likely to die by suicide. Why is that? Are females better at tolerating feelings of sadness/hopelessness? Or are males really more unsettled than they let on, and less likely to self-report sad/hopeless feelings, in which case maybe we need to find better ways to identify which ones are most at risk.
In terms of alternative explanations, in addition to pandemic responses that had a devastating effect on young people's well being, I think we (parents, schools) need to look at whether - in our effort to mold youth who will grow up to be good stewards of our planet and not contribute to social inequity - are we sending too many negative messages about climate change, social injustice, etc? What picture are we painting about the future world and is it one that instills hope in young people?
To the first question, why are males "better" at committing suicide than females despite lower reported depression incidence, the prevailing wisdom is that men tend to choose more effective methods (guns) and women choose pills, so success rate is lower. This is reflected in datasets like CDC Wonder if breaking cause of intentional self harm codes by gender.
I agree with your question "are we sending too many negative messages", though I don't know if it is "top down" or "bottom up" - that is, rather than blaming the media for barraging youth with doom and gloom stories about global warming and social injustice, it's our own thirst for bad news that the media is catering too. I suspect a news channel letting us know that poverty, starvation, racial injustice, and violence are all down (which is true) over the last 50 years wouldn't get many viewers - we prefer doomscrolling.
Critics of Bidens recent commencement address at Howard where he proclaimed White Nationalism is the number one threat to America (a specious claim to say the least) pin this on Biden rather than acknowledging he is just regurgitating the current cultural themes they are clicking on and want to hear - like any politician does.
Great comments, thanks. Schools bake global warming and social injustice in to their curriculum. Some is good, but too much is probably harmful. Yes, students should learn to make environmentally conscious choices - but too much focus on climate change turns in to "soon the earth will be a fiery hellscape, you have nothing to look forward to." Same thing with social injustice.
It would be interesting to see if teen suicides in any way cluster geographically (i.e., are some cities more prone and why)?
Even if the schools weren't "baking it in", it's still everywhere. TikTok, Instagram, NYT, FOX, background plot of enormous amount of TV and Movie premises (Personal favorite - MR Carey's "The Book of Koli" trilogy). It's basically part of the accepted zeitgeist - the "will be a fiery hellscape" - everyone knows that!
Just wonder how long this mental virus will dominate us before we realize nothing is really happening and move on to something else (it's been 60 years since this fear has been elevated to a self evident truth - I suspect in 20 years it burns out like our nuclear fallout hysteria).
It does strike me that suicide is a mental virus which can (to some extent) be inoculated against through religion/tight culture. You don't see the suicide epidemic hitting the Amish, Mennonites, LDS, Hasidic Jews, or conservative Catholics like it does for the atheist/unreligious - which, has been increasing at rate similar to cell phones. I might be wrong on this, but quick perusal of literature backs this [1] and it makes sense - having a "code", so to speak, would make you less prone to despair. Those without some programming would be easier to fall into these mental traps.
(disclosure, i'm agnostic atheist, but keep my kids in Catholic schools, attend mass, speficially for the culture aspect - my atheism hasn't turned up a better alternative yet)
This is a perfect example of the functional denial of the elemental threats to civilization and even literal survival: carbon and plutonium.
Pinker’s done a real service: pangloss over the elemental threats; hand educated adults with money and power an excuse to do nothing. The higher (sic) Fake News.
Beautiful mind, baby! It’s what we really care about.
Your readers may enjoy following the work of Jonathan Haidt who frequently collaborates with Jean Twenge (she's one of the earliest researchers to argue the smartphon>mental health crisis) on the topic of teen mental health. Highly recommended "The Coddling of the American Mind" which presents the thesis that culturally, we are prioritizing safetyism which leads to fragility, which is a driving cause of the teen mental health crisis.
Even aspects of his argument I disagree with are argued well enough I enjoyed developing counterfactuals. Great book, and his substack is worth a read too. Latest post:
Interesting comment thread. Think cars not drugs, to me that is the comparison we can use when looking at SM. Should young children even be driving? Let's focus on not allowing toddlers and elementary school children from using SM. This is where the psychological damage begins. We need to focus on our very young which takes time. All too often I have watched parents buy distractions, bright shinny objects with flashing lights and sounds(the harms of these toys needs to be addressed) for their children so they have more time to complete all their priorities. That is where the social disconnect begins. I have watched generations of young children move away from collaborative, creative interaction in play. Foundations matter. Put the energy into the little ones and a strong foundation will help them with future challenges.
As for too much scary news, limit the news. As a family become active in one area of change you feel strongly about. Let your children see their are helpers and heroes and they will not be overly despondent about their future, all the while becoming a positive force for hope.
You guys get the 2023 David Hume Award for distinguishing correlation from causation. This is a new award I just instituted, and the prize is me making this comment right now. Lucky you!
I note that this article applies very different standards to its assessment of potential harms versus benefit of social media. It cites and critically assesses studies that support harm including, interventional studies. That is good. However it cites no evidence that social media by children is beneficial, apparently relying on anecdotal evidence. Why?
I would suspect that it is fashionable to write papers about the harms, so those will be easiest to pass peer review, get published, get cited, raise journal metrics, etc.
Sociology regularly falls into traps like this. I’m not saying good outweighs harms - I have a teen daughter - but I also see same point you have, the ratio is not reflective of what probably is reality.
Hot take: bring back dumb phones! They were getting really good, right around, say, 2007. They even had a lot of the same functionality as what's offered by apps, through SMS gateways. You could get flight times, weather, local traffic and public transport info, directions to where you needed to go - without the need for an over-stimulating, power hogging device. But it all got swept into the inferno of planned obsolescence.
Being pretty much ignorant of, and pre-dating by about 2 or 3 generations the science of child psychology, I wonder if there is now a "too much" factor, or something has been lost, since the days of Super Heroes in Comic Books, and Lonesome Cowboys with a black mask over their eyes once weekly on the TV. We also got to go to the Public Library, learned the duodecimal system, and lose ourselves in a book. (I was always looking for new space-cadet scifi).
Kids have always congregated in "gangs and gaggles", and punishing some kids with exclusion. No real mental damage to pretty near all.
When my wife and I decided to have kids, we moved out of the Metro area to a farming community and I took the train back to the city for work.
So, my question is this - have we lost something very consequential by gaining this absolute connectivity peopled by 'Influencers'?
Thank you for this balanced, nuanced view of social media and its effect on teens. I would argue that living with ever increasing violence (most especially GUN violence) and the general lack of effective responses from adults may play an even bigger role in mental health issues in teens.
Social media plays a big role in the mental health of adolesants, teenagers, and adults. There is a plethera of evidence-based research that supports the link between mental health and social media. Adolesent suicide rates have increased significantly over the years. As a child, I remembered being bullied in and after school, when I got home, I was in my safe place freee from being bullied until the next day. Social media allows children and adults to bully each other in the home that used to be a safe place. It is so much easier to bully a perso behind a screen or a phone than in person. Suicide is a problem that is close to my heart, My SIL died by suicide at the age of 35 in 2001, her husband was an emotional bully leaving mental not physical scars
I feel as a HCP we do not do enough to intervene for patients with mental health and suicide. We ask questions to screen for safety and suicide but it is not enough. The stigima wall associated with mental health is still there, some progress to take down that wall has been made; however, the pregress needs to be faster.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, in 2020:
Suicide was the twelfth leading cause of death overall in the United States, claiming the lives of over 45,900 people.
Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10-14 and 25-34 , the third leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 15-24, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44.
There were nearly two times as many suicides (45,979) in the United States as there were homicides (24,576).
Katelyn, Jacqueline, I'm glad you are covering this. I recently came across this recent study reviewed by Jonathan Haidt and it seems very relevant to this topic - have you looked through this one yet? https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report
Thank you for this! In reading it, I’m inclined to think that the parents’ use of social media can also play a roll in their children’s mental health. As more time is spent online by parents, less time is spent having meaningful interactions with their kids. Have you seen any studies that address this?
I expect the biggest problem is the news. Teens are at the age when they really begin to see the world as a whole.
It's frustrating to me that none of the options are to turn off the algorithms various social media platforms use. Showing people a time ordered feed of the people they purposefully follow first with the option of discovery as something they have to click over to see might do wonders for a majority of all of us.
This is a good point. I looked at the list and thought that it didn't sound any worse than what was happening when I was a teen, but I didn't have the news thrown in my face every waking second of the day.
Carbon was an equivalent threat a couple/few decades ago?
Scientists were warning about it during the Reagan administration, if not earlier. They were ignored and shouted down by corporate stooges. Just like now.
Yes it was. But very few of us were paying attention. It was more frustrating in some ways and less in others.
I'm not saying this is a fix for everything. My kids and their friends share a lot of very heavy stuff online because it affects them and their loved ones. There's no getting away from that.
Spoutible is one of the few social media sites that does not have an algorithm. What you see in your feed is what the people you follow posted. There are extra tabs where you can see a curated feed list and then an explore area where you see everything and can do searches. Facebook is the terrible. I will see things from 2 weeks ago in my feed and nothing from stuff posted yesterday from the people I follow. I have to go to each group to see what is going on.
This underlines why we all have a responsibility to avoid exaggerating risks in the NEWS. It does real harm.
For example much of the writing on climate change is almost deranged, implying that mass is extinction is likely. There is ZERO evidence for this. In reality, many of the measures being considered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (energy poverty, degrowth) will lead to millions of avoidable deaths.
None of that is true. The climate news is conservative, honestly. Extinctions are visibly beginning. As is land loss. Energy poverty and degrowth aren't being considered by anyone in power.
The only things the giant investments in changing our energy system will directly harm are legacy energy companies too narrow minded to diversify well. Of course it's true we'll likely find new ways to screw over the poor and at risk but that's not new. Ignoring things isn't going to help them, either. They're mostly having to deal with the most climate change problems already.
Energy poverty is already happening. Energy/electricity pricing have been rising relentlessly, which is slowing growth. Given the tight coupling between growth and life expectancy, this will kill millions.
We could have cheap clean energy if we made the regulations on nuclear power rational. They currently value a life lost to radioactivity at least 100 times more than a life lost to burning fossil and biofuels.
Making nuclear power so expensive forces us to use forms of energy that damage the environment.
Because people are unhappy about rising energy prices and the large environmental footprint of renewables, activists have sought to exaggerate the impacts of climate change to persuade voters to accept these policies.
Yeah, not a word of truth in any of that. But thanks for demonstrating the problem.
Dr. Jetelina & Dr. Nesi, I am curious about your thoughts on Yondr phone pouches in high schools. My child's high school is implementing a Yondr pouch policy beginning this fall. Currently, each classroom has numbered phone"sleeves". Students are required to place their phone in a sleeve at the beginning of each class and they take it when they leave at the end. The sleeves are numbered so teachers can tell quickly whose phone is there and whose might be missing. However, my understanding is that some teachers enforce this rule and some don't (which I'm sure is par for the course in a large school).
The new policy would require each student to place their phone (also smartwatches and AirPods) in a locking pouch when they enter the building. It remains in the pouch for the entire day and staff members with handheld unlocking devices "free" the phones when students leave at the end of the day.
The reasoning for this is that students spend too much time on their phones and too little time interacting with each other and socializing. The administration believes that this will benefit students' mental health by creating a more inclusive environment, kids talking in the cafeteria instead of looking at phones, etc.
I have reservations about this (for a variety of reasons). I believe that it will further isolate the "fringe" kids. For some, lunch period is stressful because they don't have a group to sit with in the cafeteria. Those kids rely on their phones to have some outside interaction during an otherwise lonely time during the day. I know my son uses his phone sometimes to text friends whom he doesn't otherwise see in his classes, so they catch up, make plans for after school, etc. He would have less social time with those friends if he has no contact during the day.
I realize this isn't specifically related to social media because the phone is just a device -- lots of kids have phones and don't have social media. My kids (ages 17 and 12) both use phones for texting, Facetime with friends, and other purposes but neither has any social media apps or accounts (17yo isn't interested; 12yo asks but we're waiting).
However, our kids live in a digital world. I don't think literally locking up their phones during the day teaches them how to properly manage the digital environment. I want my kids to know when it is or is not appropriate to use their phone, and for what purposes. My 17-year-old checks his phone in between classes because the majority of their academic work is posted to Google Classroom (our district provides every student with a Chromebook), so he's always looking at his phone for Classroom notifications, changes to assignments, comments from teachers, etc. In addition, the groups and activities all communicate using apps like GroupMe or Discord. So, when club plans or after-school activities change, he receives that communication on his phone. I think preventing students from having any access will make things unduly burdensome without serving the intended purpose.
I would be so curious to hear your thoughts on phone use among kids, generally, even outside the social media context. As always, thank you for proving timely and data-driven information!
This is a tough question. A district near me is also instituting this. (Are you in Upstate NY, by chance?) I understand everything that you are saying. I also see the extreme harm and distraction phones cause. The kids cannot stay off them, no matter how many rules you put in place, and teachers become lenient because otherwise they would spend their entire class period policing phone use. And sometimes the worst offenders are parents who text and call their kids during class time. I know several college professors who ban phones in their classroom to improve the pass rate in their classes! I don't really know what the answer is.
In my city, the middle and high schools have places that kids can go during lunch - library, social workers office, certain teachers' classrooms - that are havens for the sort of kids you are describing. That doesn't solve the problem of communicating with friends who have different lunch periods, though.
I also know that social media is a big source of fights, and administration spot monitors it to figure out whether to expect big fights the next day, but that, of course, can take place after school hours as well.
I am in upstate NY (Capital Region). I can see both sides of this, for sure.
The phones don't belong in class. They should not be distracting students or disruptive to the educational process, nor should they be tools for cheating on tests (I know this is an issue).
There's definitely social media bullying that happens in my child's school (and every school, I imagine), but I am not sure locking phones for six hours a day changes that. I think the bullying will still happen in the other 18 hours.
I know there are places where the less popular kids can go at lunch, but I think many of them wouldn't seek refuge in a counselor's office or a teacher's classroom.
The admin says that the purpose of phone pouches is to encourage socializing. However, most of the kids in my son's school don't even have a lunch period! My child is very academically-oriented and he has a packed class schedule, but no lunch. I wanted him to take a lunch and he claimed that any kid who "cares about school" doesn't take a lunch period. He crams down a sandwich at the beginning of 5th period (in class) each day but does not have a lunch break, which I disagree with (but I pick my battles and I didn't force the issue).
The school knows that lots of kids don't have a lunch period. Is it an escape by the kids who are socially awkward? Maybe. But I think that if the school wants to encourage socializing (and even basics like nutrition and overall wellness), it should start by requiring students to have a lunch break. I think that's really, really important. I think that ensuring that everyone has a 40-minute break during the day to eat, do homework, socialize, etc. would go farther at creating the type of atmosphere they aspire to than locking the phones.
I have no idea if it's common or not that students in other schools don't take lunch. I think it's bonkers, personally, for a school to allow kids not to have a lunch/free period each day, but that's the way ours is.
My kids are in the Albany City School District. I can figure out what district you are in, and, yes, it is extremely common for kids in your district not to have a lunch period, and, no, it is not nearly as common in surrounding districts. I know kids in your district feel a lot of pressure to take as many courses as possible.
I wonder what YLE would say about the health consequences of kids not having any lunch break in school?
Yep, you know where I am because it's been on the news this week. There is a LOT of academic pressure... which, that's not new. Academic pressure has always been a thing, but college admissions is so competitive now, particularly with the moves toward being test-optional and post-covid... it's a lot.
But I definitely think there are health consequences (physical and mental) for kids not taking a lunch period. I very much wanted my child to have a lunch during the day but he *insisted* that no one does that. I even spoke with the guidance counselor about it and she just said, "Yeah, that's typical." Sigh. Not a good trend, at all. This is why I think the focus by the district is somewhat misplaced.
The other thing about the Yondr pouches is that parents (and students) are really worried about being unable to contact each other in an emergency. The school specifically doesn't want kids to have phone access in an emergency - one reason is that if there were an intruder in the building, safe hiding spots could be betrayed by phones buzzing or lighting up. I can understand that.
The other reason is that the district wants one point of information to parents (either from the district or the PD). Also understandable. They don't want kids texting their parents what's happening and potentially spreading untrue information or somehow making the situation worse and causing panic. However, it's a small community and rumors are rampant and spread like wildfire. If there were an emergency in the school and parents can't reach their kids to find out what's happening, 90% of parents are going to get in their cars and drive over there to get their kids. Also understandable because we're parents. But having thousands of parents showing up at the school or an evacuation site in an emergency DEFINITELY won't help. If a kid texts their parent and says, "I'm fine, I'm evacuated" then it would likely ease that type of congestion a bit.
I don't know. There are so many factors here.
That solution does seem like a lot of work and effort (plus easily bypassed by just placing in a burner phone/old iphone which nearly everyone I am sure has in their cupboards).
Why not simply ban use of phones in schools (my daughters Jr High does this - they get detention if caught using a phone - doesn't seem to be an issue).
The students all get locked Chromebooks/iPads anyway to go to Google Classroom, etc, does that not work in High School?
"However, our kids live in a digital world. I don't think literally locking up their phones during the day teaches them how to properly manage the digital environment."
That I completely agree with, though we are behind the curve on effectively knowing how to educate as this is all new to us too - any teacher over 42 didn't even have a cell phone during school including college.
At least in the district near where I live, they instituted this plan because it was less work than each individual teacher having to monitor and discipline, confiscating phones and bringing them to the office, making parents come in and get them. Plus teachers don't want the liability of touching a kid's $1,000 phone.
More seriously, I tutor high school kids (SAT/ACT). Based on their occasional and unprompted comments, most of them are aware of the following, if intermittently:
1. Carbon will eventually destroy their lives.
2. All adults know this, or should.
3. Almost nothing consequential—equal to the threat—is being done about it by those adults.
4. These same adults are pushing them to succeed in a future they are actively destroying.
I wonder if that plays a role. You note this possibility in your essay (but not nukes which is odd as we are nearly at midnight but denial of that threat is near-total). I say “intermittently” because this reality is too awful to live with 24/7—and not just for kids. But you can’t un-know it and denial has a psychic cost.
A friend of mine who just turned 80 is at least honest about it. He said he used to worry about all the horrors—and he gets them all—but he just gave up. He’s having a wonderful retirement. Suggested I do the same. Not, mind you, embrace the joy but keep fighting for what’s decent. Just, eh, whatever—playtime for me!
Beautiful mind > children, grandchildren, country, species, biosphere.
That is a level of utter sociopathy that I think is quite widespread. It’s why fascism is winning. They offer comforting delusions, especially of power, along with addictive sadism. Permission to be a monster with a beautiful mind, in the Barbara Bush sense.
The other option is facing reality, which is dire, and embracing sacrifice, which may come to naught anyway, for kids and the unborn.
Take a wild guess which option is more attractive—and which will become ever more so as things fall apart.
But I wonder to what extent this entirely obvious abandonment plays into the despair. This of course presumes the kids aren’t in as much functional denial as the adults. If not, it’s probably because well-off 53-year-olds like me think, with some justice, that we’ll escape the worst. If not, at least we will have lived a lot. Much easier to ignore reality when your own glutes aren’t on the line.
This is beautifully expressed
It's interesting to note that from 2019 - 2021 (i.e., the pandemic years), female high school students experienced a much bigger increase in "feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year."
Males went from appx 28% to 29% from 2019 to 2021, which is roughly flat
Females went from appx 45% to 58% from 2019 to 2021, which is a big increase
Yet even though high school females experience sadness and hopelessness at nearly twice the rate as males, males are much more likely to die by suicide. Why is that? Are females better at tolerating feelings of sadness/hopelessness? Or are males really more unsettled than they let on, and less likely to self-report sad/hopeless feelings, in which case maybe we need to find better ways to identify which ones are most at risk.
In terms of alternative explanations, in addition to pandemic responses that had a devastating effect on young people's well being, I think we (parents, schools) need to look at whether - in our effort to mold youth who will grow up to be good stewards of our planet and not contribute to social inequity - are we sending too many negative messages about climate change, social injustice, etc? What picture are we painting about the future world and is it one that instills hope in young people?
To the first question, why are males "better" at committing suicide than females despite lower reported depression incidence, the prevailing wisdom is that men tend to choose more effective methods (guns) and women choose pills, so success rate is lower. This is reflected in datasets like CDC Wonder if breaking cause of intentional self harm codes by gender.
The "it's the guns" explanation doesn't explain why males commit suicide at higher rates than females in countries without access to guns: https://ourworldindata.org/suicide?insight=suicide-deaths-are-more-common-among-men#key-insights-on-suicide
I agree with your question "are we sending too many negative messages", though I don't know if it is "top down" or "bottom up" - that is, rather than blaming the media for barraging youth with doom and gloom stories about global warming and social injustice, it's our own thirst for bad news that the media is catering too. I suspect a news channel letting us know that poverty, starvation, racial injustice, and violence are all down (which is true) over the last 50 years wouldn't get many viewers - we prefer doomscrolling.
Critics of Bidens recent commencement address at Howard where he proclaimed White Nationalism is the number one threat to America (a specious claim to say the least) pin this on Biden rather than acknowledging he is just regurgitating the current cultural themes they are clicking on and want to hear - like any politician does.
Great comments, thanks. Schools bake global warming and social injustice in to their curriculum. Some is good, but too much is probably harmful. Yes, students should learn to make environmentally conscious choices - but too much focus on climate change turns in to "soon the earth will be a fiery hellscape, you have nothing to look forward to." Same thing with social injustice.
It would be interesting to see if teen suicides in any way cluster geographically (i.e., are some cities more prone and why)?
Even if the schools weren't "baking it in", it's still everywhere. TikTok, Instagram, NYT, FOX, background plot of enormous amount of TV and Movie premises (Personal favorite - MR Carey's "The Book of Koli" trilogy). It's basically part of the accepted zeitgeist - the "will be a fiery hellscape" - everyone knows that!
Just wonder how long this mental virus will dominate us before we realize nothing is really happening and move on to something else (it's been 60 years since this fear has been elevated to a self evident truth - I suspect in 20 years it burns out like our nuclear fallout hysteria).
It does strike me that suicide is a mental virus which can (to some extent) be inoculated against through religion/tight culture. You don't see the suicide epidemic hitting the Amish, Mennonites, LDS, Hasidic Jews, or conservative Catholics like it does for the atheist/unreligious - which, has been increasing at rate similar to cell phones. I might be wrong on this, but quick perusal of literature backs this [1] and it makes sense - having a "code", so to speak, would make you less prone to despair. Those without some programming would be easier to fall into these mental traps.
(disclosure, i'm agnostic atheist, but keep my kids in Catholic schools, attend mass, speficially for the culture aspect - my atheism hasn't turned up a better alternative yet)
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7228478/
This is a perfect example of the functional denial of the elemental threats to civilization and even literal survival: carbon and plutonium.
Pinker’s done a real service: pangloss over the elemental threats; hand educated adults with money and power an excuse to do nothing. The higher (sic) Fake News.
Beautiful mind, baby! It’s what we really care about.
Your readers may enjoy following the work of Jonathan Haidt who frequently collaborates with Jean Twenge (she's one of the earliest researchers to argue the smartphon>mental health crisis) on the topic of teen mental health. Highly recommended "The Coddling of the American Mind" which presents the thesis that culturally, we are prioritizing safetyism which leads to fragility, which is a driving cause of the teen mental health crisis.
Even aspects of his argument I disagree with are argued well enough I enjoyed developing counterfactuals. Great book, and his substack is worth a read too. Latest post:
https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report
Interesting comment thread. Think cars not drugs, to me that is the comparison we can use when looking at SM. Should young children even be driving? Let's focus on not allowing toddlers and elementary school children from using SM. This is where the psychological damage begins. We need to focus on our very young which takes time. All too often I have watched parents buy distractions, bright shinny objects with flashing lights and sounds(the harms of these toys needs to be addressed) for their children so they have more time to complete all their priorities. That is where the social disconnect begins. I have watched generations of young children move away from collaborative, creative interaction in play. Foundations matter. Put the energy into the little ones and a strong foundation will help them with future challenges.
As for too much scary news, limit the news. As a family become active in one area of change you feel strongly about. Let your children see their are helpers and heroes and they will not be overly despondent about their future, all the while becoming a positive force for hope.
You guys get the 2023 David Hume Award for distinguishing correlation from causation. This is a new award I just instituted, and the prize is me making this comment right now. Lucky you!
PS: Remember to add this to your CVs! 🙂
(As usual, very well done.)
I note that this article applies very different standards to its assessment of potential harms versus benefit of social media. It cites and critically assesses studies that support harm including, interventional studies. That is good. However it cites no evidence that social media by children is beneficial, apparently relying on anecdotal evidence. Why?
I would suspect that it is fashionable to write papers about the harms, so those will be easiest to pass peer review, get published, get cited, raise journal metrics, etc.
Sociology regularly falls into traps like this. I’m not saying good outweighs harms - I have a teen daughter - but I also see same point you have, the ratio is not reflective of what probably is reality.
Dr. Nesi, do you have an opinion on the latest survey from Saipan labs?
https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report
Hot take: bring back dumb phones! They were getting really good, right around, say, 2007. They even had a lot of the same functionality as what's offered by apps, through SMS gateways. You could get flight times, weather, local traffic and public transport info, directions to where you needed to go - without the need for an over-stimulating, power hogging device. But it all got swept into the inferno of planned obsolescence.
Being pretty much ignorant of, and pre-dating by about 2 or 3 generations the science of child psychology, I wonder if there is now a "too much" factor, or something has been lost, since the days of Super Heroes in Comic Books, and Lonesome Cowboys with a black mask over their eyes once weekly on the TV. We also got to go to the Public Library, learned the duodecimal system, and lose ourselves in a book. (I was always looking for new space-cadet scifi).
Kids have always congregated in "gangs and gaggles", and punishing some kids with exclusion. No real mental damage to pretty near all.
When my wife and I decided to have kids, we moved out of the Metro area to a farming community and I took the train back to the city for work.
So, my question is this - have we lost something very consequential by gaining this absolute connectivity peopled by 'Influencers'?
Thank you for this balanced, nuanced view of social media and its effect on teens. I would argue that living with ever increasing violence (most especially GUN violence) and the general lack of effective responses from adults may play an even bigger role in mental health issues in teens.
Are drug overdoses counted as suicides? If not, should they be?
Social media plays a big role in the mental health of adolesants, teenagers, and adults. There is a plethera of evidence-based research that supports the link between mental health and social media. Adolesent suicide rates have increased significantly over the years. As a child, I remembered being bullied in and after school, when I got home, I was in my safe place freee from being bullied until the next day. Social media allows children and adults to bully each other in the home that used to be a safe place. It is so much easier to bully a perso behind a screen or a phone than in person. Suicide is a problem that is close to my heart, My SIL died by suicide at the age of 35 in 2001, her husband was an emotional bully leaving mental not physical scars
I feel as a HCP we do not do enough to intervene for patients with mental health and suicide. We ask questions to screen for safety and suicide but it is not enough. The stigima wall associated with mental health is still there, some progress to take down that wall has been made; however, the pregress needs to be faster.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, in 2020:
Suicide was the twelfth leading cause of death overall in the United States, claiming the lives of over 45,900 people.
Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10-14 and 25-34 , the third leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 15-24, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44.
There were nearly two times as many suicides (45,979) in the United States as there were homicides (24,576).
Katelyn, Jacqueline, I'm glad you are covering this. I recently came across this recent study reviewed by Jonathan Haidt and it seems very relevant to this topic - have you looked through this one yet? https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report
Thank you for this! In reading it, I’m inclined to think that the parents’ use of social media can also play a roll in their children’s mental health. As more time is spent online by parents, less time is spent having meaningful interactions with their kids. Have you seen any studies that address this?