18 October 2024

As promised in my post a few weeks ago, I am unpacking some of my learning from reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. In chapter 5 of the book he looks at 4 major harms caused by social media, online gaming and increased screen-based childhood in general.

The four harms are social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction. Haidt goes into a lot of detail about each harm in regards to research. I won’t regurgitate what he has said, but give a summary and some evidence base. Do notice, as you read, this may apply to you too (as it most definitely does to me).

Social deprivation 

Children, including teenagers, need a lot of play time daily for their healthy development. Play needs to be face to face, synchronous and physical. This means, they need to be with peers, in person and have use their bodies to interact with the environment and with one another. Think of your own childhood (Gen X and Millennial parents) where you walked or rode your bike to a friends house or met up somewhere and figured out together what you wanted to do with your time.

“The healthiest play is outdoors and includes occasional physical risk-taking and thrilling adventure.” Haidt, 2024.

 

It is worth repeating; teens still need to play. It may look different at 15 years old compared to 8 years old, but they need play. The more time they have for face to face interactions with peers, without screens, the better. The presence of smart phones with notifications switched on interrupt social time and in some cases make it impossible to be present.

If we think about this in an adult context, how many of us have been having “quality time” with a friend and been interrupted more than once by our own or our friend’s cell phone notifications? And not just more than once, but at least 3 times? And not just by the phone, but also by the smartwatch buzzing? As adults, we’re depriving ourselves socially when we allow these disturbances during our face to face social time. We need to re-train ourselves as much as we need to help our teens.

Sleep deprivation

I wrote a blog a while ago about the WHO recommendations for sleep, play and exercise. Time on screens cannot replace any of these elements which contribute to healthy growth and development.

There are many studies that show a causal link between sleep deprivation and the rise of the phone-based childhood. 

 

When teens do not get enough sleep, they are not able to concentrate as well, their learning suffers, and they can be more anxious and irritable. Sounds like us adults too, no?! General guidelines are that tweens (9 – 12 year olds) need at least 9 hours of sleep a night and teens need at least 8 hours.

Jean Twenge is an American Professor who has produced prolific research in this area, and you can explore her work further if you’re interested.

Attention fragmentation

“Attention is the choice we make to stay on one task, one line of thinking, one mental road, even as attractive off-ramps beckon. When we fail to make that choice and allow ourselves to be frequently side-tracked, we end up confused, dazed, scatterbrained… in other words, fragmented.” Nicholas Carr  author of  The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains. 2010.

When I read this section, I have to say I felt convicted of falling ‘victim’ to this fragmentation trap. But the truth is, I am not a victim at all, I am someone who gets to make choices and is trying to make better choices to stay in focus where and when I need to be. I have found having a mindset that my attention is really valuable and I can spend a bit of time thinking about what or who to give it to, is empowering.

But our teens aren’t there yet, and we need to help them to start thinking about it. Haidt writes that adults have their attention quite easily hijacked, and teens even more so as they do not yet have a fully developed pre-frontal cortex that can help them stay on-task.

Teenagers are growing up in a time where flitting between different activities, conversations, and tasks is the norm. Smartphones provide a never-ending stream of interruptions.

“People can’t really multi-task; all we can do is shift attention back and forth between tasks while wasting a lot of it on each shift.” (Madore & Wagner, 2019)

“When adolescents have continuous access to a smartphone at their developmentally sensitive age, it may interfere with their maturing ability to focus.” writes Haidt. If we think about what is required to engage in meaningful learning, attention is one of our most precious commodities.

If you as an adult are struggling with attention fragmentation, assume your teen is too. Chat about it with them; tell them what it is and ask how you can help. As I have said before, you can set screentime limits and boundaries and help them with this because likely they won’t be able to do it for themselves.

When we are constantly in a state of fragmentation of our attention, we cannot undertake deep work. Cal Newport defines deep work as

” Activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”  in Deep Work. 2016. 

Although Newport is referring to a professional, adult context, I believe this is also applicable to teenagers. Imagine helping them cultivate skills for focused attention now, in a world of people who have their attention fragmented. Teenagers are capable of amazing things; some have started their own businesses or invented things that help others. This is only possible for those who do the deep work, and who put in the time to discover where their unique talents can positively impact the world.

Addiction

Creators of social media and games have absolutely mastered how to use the brain’s pleasure chemical – dopamine – to get people hooked onto what they are offering. Dopamine is a reward that creates more wanting and doesn’t satisfy us.

Not everyone using social media or gaming is addicted, but the natural feedback loop of pleasure in our bodies is definitely being exploited.

We need to bear in mind always that the creators of games, apps and controllers of social media DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR TEEN, or you. They care about making money, and that is (literally) the bottom line. People being addicted to digital use serves their agenda perfectly.

 

Haidt cites Anna Lembke who wrote a book called Dopamine Nation. She found that teens who are heavy digital users (gaming and social media), stated that nothing feels good anymore, when they were not engaged in their preferred screen activities. Those withdrawing from all screen use experienced feelings of anxiety, irritability, insomnia and a general sense of unease.

Teens addicted to digital use tend to suffer all of the other harms already discussed as well. I remember attending an Online Safety conference in London in 2018 hosted by the NSPCC. Some medical doctors presented cases of addicted teens to the conference and it was horrific. One teen spent so many hours back to back gaming that he never ate or drank or used the bathroom. The result was bowels so impacted that they initially thought he had a growth.

Addiction to screens is real, for us and for our teens. For our teens, the impact on the developing brain can be immense. Consult your doctor or a health professional you  trust if you suspect your child might be addicted.

What do you think of these 4 harms? What other harms are you seeing in your children or those you work with?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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