Transcript: Why a Social Media Ban Won’t Save Teens | #childpredator | #onlinepredator | #sextrafficing

Editor’s Note: In this thought-provoking talk, developmental psychologist Candice Odgers challenges the widely held belief that smartphones and social media are the primary drivers of the youth mental health crisis. Drawing on 25 years of research, she argues that focusing on bans fails to address the root causes of teen distress and instead lets big tech companies off the hook. Ultimately, Odgers calls for a shift in perspective, urging adults to prioritize meaningful investments in mental health support and safe community spaces for teenagers. 

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Teenagers Today Are Amazing

CANDICE ODGERS: Teenagers today are amazing. You didn’t think I was going to use that word because as we age, our adult brains have a harder time making this teenager equals amazing connection. I’m always worried that I’d reach the age where I’d look back and immediately judge the youth of today for what they wear, right? How they spend their time, lament the loss of my free-range childhood, and wish that they would spend more of their time doing things that we did, like crash our cars and excessively drink, right? True story.

But I’m beginning to think that I’m immune from judging teenagers in this way. I think it’s because I now know too much about them. So let me explain.

25 Years of Studying Teen Mental Health

I’m a developmental psychologist, and for the past 25 years, that’s a long time, I’ve been analyzing trends in teen mental health. Since 2008, we’ve been working with thousands of 10- to 14-year-olds, getting information every day from their phones on how they’re feeling, how they spend their time, who they’re with. With their consent, we look at their school records, we track their sleep data, we look at their step count, and we see what they’re doing online. Importantly, we listen to them about what upsets them and what they need to be well. It has been a really incredible, and at times wild, ride.

It’s also been an illuminating one, because one of the most consistent things we have found is that the stories that you and I are told repeatedly every day about teenagers today, that they are lost, that they are worse off than ever, that somehow smartphones and social media have destroyed them and their brains, it doesn’t match the data, and it doesn’t match what they tell us. There is a massive gap.

Scary Stories Sell

And as I’ve tried to make sense of this gap, I keep coming back to a simple truth that we all know. Scary stories sell. They always have. And the more often you hear something, the more likely you are to believe that it’s true. I’m going to say it again. The more often you hear something, the more likely you are to believe that it’s true.

When scary stories are really easy to sell to parents, we are an anxious lot. The hyper-vigilance, it hits us when we hold that tiny baby in our arms. Our entire world changes. It hits again when they hit puberty, and they begin to change in these dramatic and rapid ways, when our sense of control over them and what comes next begins to feel less certain. I get this. My 15-year-old is 6’4″. My 12-year-old is embracing independence like she’s looking for college next week.

But the good news is that the real story about teens today is far more positive and far less frightening than the stories we all read. They have made remarkable progress on metrics that really matter, and we know a lot about how to keep them happy, safe, and well.

The Adult Mental Health Crisis Behind Teen Struggles

Okay, the bad news. The bad news is we are in the middle of an adult mental health crisis, and caregiver mental health is the most important predictor of teen mental health by far. So if we are concerned about teens today, we need to invest in real and meaningful ways in the adults around them. Many of them are simply not okay. So I’ll come back to that.

Science-Based Facts About American Teens Today

First, I want to share with you a few science-based facts about kids today, and I’m going to focus on American teens because that’s where a lot of the stories that you and I are hearing come from. So in the past 20 years, we’ve had some major wins. Rates of teen violence, alcohol use, pregnancy have plummeted to historic lows. You are looking at the most educated generation ever in terms of high school graduation. American teens are inventors, they’re activists, they’re leaders, they’re amazing singers, they are Olympians, they’re amazing.

But they’re also telling us that they’re sadder, and they’re more worried about the world that they’re growing up in. So they report increased concerns about safety at school, climate change, racism, their future.

What’s Really Stressing Teens Out

In our studies, what we find is the most frequently reported stressors are conflict in their home and pressure to do well at school. And those are also the things that predict their mental health day-to-day.

Now, since 2008, we’ve seen an uptick in youth suicide risk. But perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising because adult suicide has been increasing dramatically in the United States since 1999. Remember when I said that adult mental health and caregiver mental health is the most important predictor of child mental health?

Well, with that in mind, I want to take a look at this slide. This graph here shows you that between 2011 and 2021, the rate of overdoses due to drug use among parents more than doubled. People ask me all the time, what could have happened during this period other than social media coming online? The answer is that adults were in distress and parents were dying.

Social Media Is Not the Major Predictor

Okay. Let’s go back to that elephant in the room.

For most adolescents, like boys, there’s no association, and for girls, what we find is that girls that are depressed go on to use social media more, but not the other way around. Social media does not meaningfully predict future mental health problems.

Now, despite this, adults are quickly converging on banning social media for under 16s as a simple and singular solution to solving the youth mental health crisis, and here is the crazy part. There’s not one single study to date that has actually tested whether shutting it off impacts their mental health, and when we do this among adults, we find on average impacts that are close to or indistinguishable from zero.

I know. There’s a big distance between the story we’re told and the data. The National Academies of Sciences, one of the most well-respected organizations in the world, convened an expert panel, and they came to this conclusion also.

We Are Punishing Victims

Okay. So, before you start throwing stuff at me, I want to clarify a few things. I’m not saying there are no harms of online. I’m not saying big tech does not require massive overhaul. Both things can be true. We need to clean up the online world for everyone, and especially our children, and social media is not the major driver of teen mental health problems for most adolescents today.

But instead of cleaning up the online world and prosecuting perpetrators of online harm, regardless of the office or the position in society that they hold, we are punishing victims. We’re kicking them out of the spaces they go to be with friends, to consume youth culture, and yes, sadly, many times to escape people that are harming them offline.

We’ve already kicked teenagers out of public spaces. In the U.S., we’ve created a society where firearms are the number one killer of our children, and now we’re telling our kids that we’re going to take away the spaces that they’re going to virtually gather and create community because adults broke that too. Yes, I’m saying adults broke the internet, and they’re trying to fix it by kicking kids off.

So, a social media ban might feel good for the adults in the room, but teens tell me, and I believe them, it’s not going to work. It’ll push them into less safe and less regulated spaces, and it will prevent us from doing what we really need to help them to be well.

What Would Actually Make Things Better

So, if a social media ban might make things worse, what would make things better? So, first, we need to invest in the adults around children. Did you know that the ratio of counselors to students in U.S. middle schools is 1 to 500? Spending millions of dollars on Yonder pouches to lock up kids’ phones is not going to solve that.

What We Need to Do Instead

We need to take that money, we need to hire teachers, we need to hire counselors, and we need to pay them well. Building a healthy human requires investment in children and the adults around them, full stop.

Second, we need to build spaces that are welcoming and safe for all teens to build the skills they need for the future. My colleague, Steven Shuler, spends his days designing digital mental health services for rural communities and opening up youth drop-in centers across the state of California for young people who need it. We know young people are more likely to go online when they’re anxious and depressed. We need to be there to build the services and supports that they need, instead of just focusing on taking things away.

Do Not Give Up on This Generation

And three, please, do not believe everything that you hear about young people today. A favorite pastime of adults has been shaming young people, but this generation is not lost or destroyed. They are resilient. They are resilient because they are succeeding, despite the suffering of adults around them. And if we want to help them to continue to succeed, we need to set high expectations, and then we need to support them in getting them there. This is the magic combination that has always worked in teaching, in coaching, in parenting. It still works with teens today. Tech has not changed that.

Big Tech Does Not Get a Pass

And finally, just so you believe me, I’m going to say it again, big tech does not get a pass. This cannot fall to parents and teachers. We require more regulation, but bans don’t do that. They let companies off the hook. Instead, we need to fund teachers. We need to build communities and spaces for children and teenagers to play and to learn. And finally, we need to deliver effective digital mental health services and digital literacy programs to young people where and when they need them. And we’re going to pay for all of this with a big ol’ tax on tech.

Did I mention that I’m Canadian, and I do not mind taxing the rich. But if our goal is to support young people, and I assume that we all share that, then we will fail if all we do is focus on tech and taking things away. If all we see when we look at our kids is their phone, we’re going to fail seeing what they really need from us. Thank you.

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