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GMAIL 1 26

The New Satanic Panic Is Here

Are smartphones and social media actually destroying teen mental health, or is this just another moral panic? In my latest episode of my Free Speech Friday YouTube series, I critically examine the pervasive false narrative that phones, apps, and screen time are responsible for rising anxiety, depression, and harm among teenagers.

These claims, popularized by politicians, MSM journalists, interest groups like the Heritage Foundation, and authors like Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation), are being used to justify mass surveillance laws, deplatforming marginalized people, and implementing policies that actually harm kids and reward big tech.

Haidt and others boosting this moral panic have continually pushed debunked claims about how social media can turn kids LGBTQ. Haidt has pushed false and misogynistic claims that young liberal women suffer from more "anxiety." He is on the board of Bari Weiss' unaccredited reactionary right wing University.

All of this comes just as two massive new studies were published just this week that, once again, debunk the harmful and dangerous claims made by Haidt and other right wing reactionary figures.

The first study was published in JAMA Pediatrics. It followed over 100,000 adolescents across three years. It found that the relationship between social media use and well-being is not remotely linear. Kids who use social media moderately actually have the best outcomes, while kids who don’t use social media at all have the worst outcomes.

The study found that, while very, very extreme amounts of social media use can be harmful, “moderate social media use was associated with the best well-being outcomes, and for girls, moderate use became most favorable from middle adolescence onward.”

Mike Masnick reported on these studies in TechDirt writing:

Researchers at the University of Manchester just published a separate study in the Journal of Public Health that followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years. Their conclusion? Screen time spent on social media or gaming does not cause mental health problems in teenagers. At all.

From the Guardian’s coverage of the UK study:

The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers’ symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year. Increases in girls’ and boys’ social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year.

Zero. Not “small.” Not “modest.” Zero.

The UK researchers also examined whether how kids use social media matters—active chatting versus passive scrolling. The answer? Neither appeared to drive mental health difficulties. As lead author Dr. Qiqi Cheng put it:

We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems – the story is far more complex than that.

As Mike writes, “while researchers urge caution, politicians have been happy to sprint ahead. Australia leapt into the fray, and the ban [on social media under 16s] has so far proven to be a complete mess.

The entire premise of Australia’s ban—and similar proposals floating around in various US states and across Europe—is that social media is inherently harmful to young people, and that removing access is protective. But both studies suggest the reality is far more complicated. The Australian researchers explicitly call this out:

Social media’s association with adolescent well-being is complex and nonlinear, suggesting that both abstinence and excessive use can be problematic depending on developmental stage and sex.:

In other words: Australia’s ban may be taking kids who would have been moderate users with good outcomes and forcing them into the “no use” category that the study associates with worsewell-being. It’s potentially the worst of all possible policy outcomes.

The UK study’s co-author, Prof. Neil Humphrey, reinforced this point, “Our findings tell us that young people’s choices around social media and gaming may be shaped by how they’re feeling but not necessarily the other way around. Rather than blaming technology itself, we need to pay attention to what young people are doing online, who they’re connecting with and how supported they feel in their daily lives.”

That’s a crucial distinction that the moral panic crowd keeps glossing over: correlation running in the opposite direction than assumed. Kids who are already struggling, and who aren’t getting the support they need, might use social media differently—not the other way around.”

I highly suggest reading more of Mike’s amazing coverage in TechDirt. For instance, this story, this story, this story, this story, and this story.

I also dug deep into the data on all of this and made a video about how harmful this moral panic is, and how right wing reactionary figures like Haidt, want to scapegoat social media or smartphone use, instead of addressing the real harms in society, which we know are affecting kids negatively. [WATCH HERE]

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