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Father of five with the last two in high school and middle school. We took away the phones after four years of mental health issues. After 4 months of the cutof

Father of five with the last two in high school and middle school. We took away the phones after four years of mental health issues. After 4 months of the cutoff: were now backing down the meds and the kids are doing much better. Sorry, but I have to call bs on this study.

cbg0 3y ago
Your anecdotal experience doesn't really trump this study, especially seeing how your kids have also been receiving psychiatric treatment, which is likely the bigger impact than you taking their phones.
- indymike 3y ago
  You have literally no information from which to make this comment.
semi-extrinsic 3y ago
So let's talk about what this study says and doesn't say. First off it's a quite high quality longitudinal study with 4 waves (different birth years) and several thousand participants, where screen time was used to quantify social media use, and mental health outcomes were quantified through interviews with mental health professionals. It finds that "use of social media is not correlated with developing depression or anxiety". It also finds "developing depression or anxiety is not correlated with change in use of social media". It specifically does not say anything about whether using social media while having a mental health disorder is good or bad. Let's suppose you swap out "using social media" with "drinking alcohol", and "10-16 year olds" with "18-25 year olds". Nobody would be surprised if you found both a) that whether a person drinks alcohol or not isn't a good predictor for mental health issues, but also b) that if you have mental health issues, reducing alcohol consumption is very good for your mental health. Both of those can be true at the same time.
bluescrn 3y ago
There's so much stuff online that's so obviously going to be harmful if kids/teens are constantly exposed to it - porn, violence, fake/catastrophised news, angry/hateful tribalism, bullying/harassment, dangerous stunts performed for likes, etc. And social media algorithms can bring a lot of more outrageous content together into one endless feed. It shouldn't really require a scientific study to know that the longer you can keep kids away from that stuff, the better. Yes, there's also amazing educational resources online, but they can be accessed via a filtered internet connection on a home PC, where parents can have some idea of what their kids are doing online. If kids need phones for communication, maybe an old dumb Nokia that can make calls+texts, has no internet access, is practically indestructible, and isn't a theft magnet might be a better option than a smartphone?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Unfortunately schools demand kids be given a smartphone.

cbg0 3y ago

Your anecdotal experience doesn't really trump this study, especially seeing how your kids have also been receiving psychiatric treatment, which is likely the bigger impact than you taking their phones.

indymike 3y ago
You have literally no information from which to make this comment.

semi-extrinsic 3y ago

So let's talk about what this study says and doesn't say. First off it's a quite high quality longitudinal study with 4 waves (different birth years) and several thousand participants, where screen time was used to quantify social media use, and mental health outcomes were quantified through interviews with mental health professionals. It finds that "use of social media is not correlated with developing depression or anxiety". It also finds "developing depression or anxiety is not correlated with change in use of social media". It specifically does not say anything about whether using social media while having a mental health disorder is good or bad. Let's suppose you swap out "using social media" with "drinking alcohol", and "10-16 year olds" with "18-25 year olds". Nobody would be surprised if you found both a) that whether a person drinks alcohol or not isn't a good predictor for mental health issues, but also b) that if you have mental health issues, reducing alcohol consumption is very good for your mental health. Both of those can be true at the same time.

bluescrn 3y ago

There's so much stuff online that's so obviously going to be harmful if kids/teens are constantly exposed to it - porn, violence, fake/catastrophised news, angry/hateful tribalism, bullying/harassment, dangerous stunts performed for likes, etc. And social media algorithms can bring a lot of more outrageous content together into one endless feed. It shouldn't really require a scientific study to know that the longer you can keep kids away from that stuff, the better. Yes, there's also amazing educational resources online, but they can be accessed via a filtered internet connection on a home PC, where parents can have some idea of what their kids are doing online. If kids need phones for communication, maybe an old dumb Nokia that can make calls+texts, has no internet access, is practically indestructible, and isn't a theft magnet might be a better option than a smartphone?

jacquesm 3y ago
Unfortunately schools demand kids be given a smartphone.