To The Contrary

Funding for To The Contrary provided by: This week on To The Contrary: There's going to be new things that happen with AI, you know, in the pictur now to chat bots and all kinds of new technologies are coming in.

I believe a lot of the act out, a lot of some of the negativ behaviors are due to confusion.

Content sometimes can reall bring them down and other times it's really great to connect with others.

And so having those conversations and kind of helping them have a decisional balance.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erb.

Welcome to To The Contrary, a discussion of news and social chang from a variety of perspectives.

Social medi and digital technology are now woven into the daily life of young people.

Phones, platforms, games and AI tools shape how teens communicate, learn and pass time.

A new three year study of 25,000 teens found social media use didn' produce anxiety or depression.

The results challenged the idea that social media is driving teen mental health problems.

Joining me today are Doctor Tarra Bates-Duford, founder and CEO of Family Matters Counseling, Linda Charmaraman, PhD of Wellesley College, and Doctor Sarah Domoff of the University of Albany.

So let's start with the questions.

If it's not social media driving all these changes that we don't like, like increased depression and lonelines and all kinds of mental issues.

What is it?

I think it's a combination of a few factors.

Growing up, there were associations between music and behavior.

Right?

Each generation, there's something new.

I think right no it's a lot of colliding factors.

It could be social influences from other children.

It could be more, parent are working outside of the home.

Whereas before you had maybe one parent that would be in the home, one parent that would work outside the home.

It could be shows.

It could be, even the music, drinking or other things.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that increased social media or screen time is attributable to violence or behavioral defects or anything like that.

It just depends on the child, the family and the situation.

I agre wholeheartedly with Tarra about the different factors that may be, you know, driving's in the mental health crisis that it's been in the news, you know, quite a bit the last few years.

I think some of the panic is about what is driving wedges in family life.

And it could be a lot of things.

It could be school pressure.

It could be, you know, the two working families situation or the lack of being able to be with a lot of generations of family because of, you know, having to work in places that are more affordable and, you know, the lack of affordability of childcare.

And you know, what are the things that you have the kids doing with their time if you can't afford, you know, to have a nanny or very expensive summer programming, you know, sometimes these devices are things that are tools that could help family life, and sometimes it doesn't help family life.

It depends on what your goal is.

How could we say And apparently, these 25,000 teens surveyed in this study didn't seem to think that that' just the stress of having chaos.

You know, my cell phone's going on all day long, no matter what else I'm trying to do.

It drives me nuts.

And whether they're in school and some schools ban the cell phone, some don't.

But just the constant noise and stress.

And this one's texting me and that one's trying to send me a notification and blah, blah, blah, blah.

How can they say that's not adding to stress in today's life and therefore to increased mental problems?

it could be associated but not predictable.

For example, think about us when we have a lot of conflicting tasks to do, we get frustrated.

We get, you know, we get overwhelmed.

The same goes for children.

The only difference is they lack the emotional regulation that we tend to develop over time as we mature.

Right.

So when these phones and things are going off, sometimes it's hard to focus, right.

So we have to remember they'r in this developmental age group where they're trying to learn the things that we have already learned.

They're trying to multitask.

They're trying to focus and they're trying to kind of hone in on the things that they need to do.

Now, when you have phones and it goes off during class, it could break your momentum.

It could break your concentration.

You had just been catching on to something.

Then all of a sudden you ge a distraction and you lose it.

So it can lead to distraction, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's leading to some sort of pitfall, some sort of behavioral issue some sort of intellectual defect as it relates to phones and social media.

Also, if you look at the study that you're referencing, looking at time, sometimes, is the issue in this work because it's more complicated than just accrued number of hours.

And if we think about the content of what children are exposed to online, that seems to matter as well, for good or for bad, as well as timing of use.

So maybe it's interfering with sleep or or maybe they're exposed to content in the news or online victimization that may be contributing to some stressors.

Again, it could be more nuanced than sometimes time can capture in this research.

Well, if in fact it is tim and the fact that social media are, if nothing else, certainly breaking up the free time that people used to have, what is a way to control it?

You're not going to stop kids from wanting to see it.

It's too late.

It's out there.

It's gone.

But how can you regulate it or suggest to parents that they regulate or get kids rolling on this nonstop exposure to the media cycle that they're going to have to live on for the most part?

How do you get them to build it in with separate time so that they can mature while they're trying to absorb all of it?

Creating boundaries, in regards to its use.

I saw this really amazing article, a couple of days ago how a group of moms got together and on their daughter's birthday, they gave themand son they gave them one of those wall phones with a cord.

And they all made this pact that when their kids reached the eighth grade, then they would allow them to have the opportunity to get a cell phone.

But they realized that socia interaction is a part of healthy social functioning.

So they didn't want to take that away, but they also didn't want to lean into social media and other distractions.

They wanted the to be able to focus at school, but then after school have the ability to connect, share and kind of unload and, you know, build relationships with one another.

And I though that was such an awesome idea.

And because it was a old phone, the kids were really excited and they were looking at it almost like it was vintage.

It's not vintage to us, but they were looking at it like it was vintage and cool, and they were really kind of showing off these phones.

And I think anything with boundaries would be more beneficial to children than it would be a hindrance to children.

Other thoughts o how to work them in as opposed to just dunk them in the wate and hope they get up and swim?

Parent could be very mindful about when and in which instances, and how much they would have exposure for the the beginning user of a phone in which social media comes soon after.

And so maybe really rolling it out slowly and really see how they reac and have ongoing conversations about the use of this device that gives them access to the world, you know, to the universe.

And so, you know, how are things going?

You know, what are some exciting things you have going on in there and what kind of social connections are you bridging?

What kind of new skills are you learning?

What kind of, you know, new explorations are actually beneficia to your academics versus okay, what are the things that are that are, you know, really, you know, distressing you, that maybe there's too much of the news cycle, that we need to kind of limit that, maybe you can limit some of the doomscrolling limits, some of the advertisements tha are affecting your body image.

And so I would say that the main thing is to know what your kid is doing and not make assumptions about what they're doin or not doing that could be both beneficial or detrimental to their well-being.

So ongoing conversation throughout the pre phone period, the early years and even the later years just kind of check in every once in a while because there's going to b new things that happen with AI, you know, in the picture now to chat bots and all kinds of new technologies are coming in.

And don't don't assume tha everything's fine just because, you know, you had that talk, you know, a year ago.

Yeah, and to follow up on that.

I totally agree.

We also hear fro teens themselves about kind of how do we partner with you to make change?

And a lot of them are recognizing what's happening online.

They do recognize that content sometimes can really bring them down.

And other times it's really great to connect with others.

And so having those conversations and kind of helping them have a decisional balance, like what are the benefits and what are the risks so that there's more openness to having those conversations and really developing, you know, what strategies can benefit you and maybe shutting off exposure to certain types of content or changing some of the setting and teaching teens and parents how to do that can be really helpful.

So kind of using those built in systems to kind of block content that we know can be really distressing for youth and for adults.

And I think more intentionality.

One of the things that I've heard from children that I work with, and teens is the inconsistency of it all.

Like a parent will give a phone then take a phone because they're upset, and there's no real consistency or boundaries surrounding its use.

So I believe a lot of the act out, a lot of some of the negativ behaviors are due to confusion.

So most people I'm a visual learner.

If I can see it, I can connect with it.

If you can explain it, I think that would lead to a greater understanding and more acceptance of rules and boundaries, rather than having it kind of choppy.

Do this on this day, not on this day.

You can use it during this time and that you can't use it during this time, but then you can use it on this time during a different day.

I think if we reduce the amount of confusion, we can increase the amount of kind of like buying and understanding of why certain things need to happen at certain times, and why it may not be appropriate to use phones during school.

And let me ask you I mean, you're all talking about parents who are involved with their children.

First of all, not all kids have parents who are involved with them.

Or maybe they are one of several children and they're being raised by a single parent.

And that parent also obviously has to work to afford clothes and food for the family.

What do you say to those kids and to those parents and to the teachers who must be involved with them on some level even if they're homeschooling, to try to help them get a handle on how to deal with this huge amassed amount of knowledge and things that are pulling them away from school, pulling them away from friendships, so that they can learn they can grow up at least semi-normally compared to how kids grew up 30, 50 years ago.

Well, it does take a village.

And if a family, a nuclear family itself doesn't have a traditional structures you know, because of, you know, working conditions or dismissing parents.

And, there's so many, so man studies, at least in our city, we follow about a thousand youth, you know, over time, from middle school into high school and their parents and how they monitor their kids social media use.

And so much that we're finding is that, a lot of families have older siblings on board, their younger sibling or cousins or aunts and uncles who maybe the kid is more feels more safe talking to them about certain things that are happening in their life, whether it's online or off.

line.

Sometimes you just need that pipeline of a person who's going to not have a judgmental ear, okay, this is happening.

What do I do?

They're spreading around a nude of me.

This is a deep fake or somethin that is gonna be really alarming that maybe a parent wouldn't be able to handle or maybe they're afraid that their phone is going to be taken away.

Just like you were saying earlier.

Okay The last time they overreacted.

So I' not going to tell them anymore.

And so you stop that connection, that open, you know, conversation, safe space to talk about the negative things.

And so, and teachers at school, you know, clubs, coaches, nurses, counselors, you know, so many people in the village can be helpful for a person to navigate this world that they're kind of afraid to bring up.

And it really is important.

Just like everybody was saying here that there's some kind of, you know, understanding self-awareness about your own use and what drives negative, you know, consequences and how this new generation is using the devices in ways that us and the older generations never had, you know, never grew up with, with internet and mobile devices on the regular and so having that generational kind of gap, kind of be, you know, some of the main things that we're learning from the youth, how it is, to, you know, grow up in this generation.

And they're also learning about some of the nostalgic ways that we used to grow up.

And maybe they'll be mor accepting of that landline phone or some kind of flip phone, you know, alternative.

This stud we're talking about25,000 kids.

That's a huge study.

But have there been any other sort of general societal studies to see what are emerging as new types of or new, more commonly spread types of mental illness or mental conditions that didn't exist or weren't as in as large a segment of the populatio as there are now that everybody and his brother and sister and mother has a cell phone?

Not really.

What I'm noticing is that now we're labeling things appropriately.

It's just like with children that were autistic, it was believed at some point that they wouldn't be able to speak and function in a way that would lead to like a healthy livelihood, adult functioning.

We're learning more every day, just like with single parents that first start of with validating the experience, meaning there's going to be some challenges unique to you as a single parent, right, that's not going to look like, you know like a couple family household because you're doing this by yourself.

Bring in, like Linda said, your support system.

But make sure whenever I'm working with kids that are from a split family, what I try to do is get them to mirror each other's household in regards to boundaries, because this should not be okay here, but okay over there, because again, you're going to be faced with the problem of confusion and you know, act out; they should look the same so the child, no matter what environment they go into with dad, mom, mom, mom it looks similar.

And there's a sense of I know what is expected.

I'm comfortable in this environment and I don't have to keep shifting between personalities in order to be okay in this environment.

What happens when you try to get parents or different caregivers for these kids to stay in unison about when the phone can be used, how many hours per day it can be used when you're supposed to turn it off, what kind of viewing, what kind of material is okay, and what kind of material is not okay.

Do the caregiver get along on those decisions, or how is that all handled?

A lot of times, no.

When I meet with them I meet with them all together.

But then the question remains are we here about your interest?

Are we here about the child's interest?

And if you can look at something larger than yourself, then we can we can come from here.

We can go from here.

But at the end of the day, unfortunately, we're not here working on the challenges you're experiencing.

We're working on the challenges of someone more vulnerable than you.

Let's start from there.

So in giving them option because no one likes to be told, but giving them the power with options and based upon what they discuss, let's come up with an agreement of how we move forward at the same time, in the same place.

And how early do these behaviors and controls and parental involvement or family involvement, and how often and when the child can use the cell phone, at what age should this start?

I think it should start as early as possible because children are very, very smart.

I mean, years ago we used to think they didn't understand what we were saying, right?

And we know that's not true.

So I think the earlier the better.

It could start with child friendly language.

Sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be.

But if you can speak to a child in child friendly ways and then kind of edit that as they get older, it just provides the consistency and better understanding of why certain things need to happen.

Again, if you're on the same page, the child understands what's expected, right?

And I've never known a kid that thrived with lack of boundaries and consistency.

I've never seen a child thrive in that environment.

I've always seen kids that thrive in boundaries of kindness, compassion, some boundaries, but also working together with consistency.

But are there racial differences in how kids respond to cell phones and all the the heightened level of media and communications that young peopl have coming into their lives now Consistently, the Pew Research Group have show there are a lot of racial ethnic differences and gender differences and income of household differences of how much youth are using digital media in general, internet in general, and social media.

Tell our audience that doesn't know about, the Pew group, what it has found, generally speaking, for each of these differentiations you mentioned.

One thing that theyve been consistently found that they do these surveys, these national surveys that are representative of the U.S.

population, you know, consistently every year, sometimes multiple times a year.

And they constantly fin that, you know, the most avid, most frequent users are some of the most underrepresented, the ones that are marginalized, you know, minoritized.

We don't really know much about the reasons why they are on internet and social media and their phones more than their white middle class, upper middle class counterparts.

And a lot of times people will think of it as a place of deficit, like, oh gosh, no, look at that household.

There's no boundaries.

And so that's why they're They just use it so much.

And here, this is an example of what not to do.

However if you look at the motivations behind some of the reasons why people are using it, it also means that sometimes some households are justhave more favorable ideas about internet and how much you can learn from the internet or from social media and from each other, and how useful it might be in learning a new language, for instance.

And the importance of it being, you know, something that keeps them company, you know, when there are less adults to supervise, and there's just some some families just have a different opinion about the value of screens and social media, you know, for connection and for finding people who don't look like you at your school, finding people that have the same interests that you cant find in your immediate geographical environment.

And so there are many different theories about why, you know, these populations are are gravitating towards, you know, these spaces.

Sometimes it's actually a safer space than the physical space.

Theres a third space, you know, some places it's not as easy to just go and shoot hoops or take a walk around the neighborhood and play tennis you know, with your neighbors.

I mean, in some places there aren't physical environments that are conducive for kids to just be riding bikes all over the place.

Sometimes, this online environmen is actually veryactually quite more healthy.

And some families find it a safer option.

Are we finding any positive psychological developments?

Are the kids today who grew up with tech from the beginning, from since they've been born and able to move themselves around and read and such?

Do they have differen psychological characteristics, some of which may be mor positive than prior generations?

What we do know is that the content matters.

And so when we do see positive media effects, it's because of the conten that the children are consuming.

So pro-social educational conten like on PBS kids, Sesame Street.

And so forth.

I've had research that shows that hours consuming that type of conten is actually linked to benefits.

So it really depends on the content.

And importantly, if there's an adult or other caregiver around talking about the content, processing it, we actually see some benefits from that too, so.

Benefits in what way?

What are you seeing?

It's like more aware of emotions social skills.

So learning from, the characters who engage in pro-social behaviors.

And we have parents or adults label that and say, you see how, you know, Daniel did that.

That's a that's how you that's how you're a good friend, you know, kind of reinforces the behaviors.

So just as negative content, they have some negative outcomes.

We we can see it with positive too.

And so it's really important, especially with those younger years to make sure that if they are consuming, you know, videos or television content, that it is developed for children, and that it's appropriate and really tailored to kind of building up some of those skills that we want children to build up in those early years.

Other thoughts on beneficial behavior that we're seeing growing as a result of social media?

Yeah, socialization.

Sometimes in school, they have brief moments of socialization with each othe because the point is education.

But after school, they get to talk to other children tha they wouldn't normally talk to.

Someone could live down the street, which, you know, I have encountered with kids that I work with, and they never knew their name.

They never had the opportunity to talk to them.

But utilizing social media, oh, this person is on TikTok, this person is here.

And then they start developing a relationship and a rapport, and they start to get into different interests and realize they have things in common when this person is doing something that they didn't realize that they were doing, and it builds more open communication with someone you wouldn't ordinarily have communication or contact with.

I did a study on the differences between early initiators of social media and later initiators, and I defined it as anything 13 and up versus 11 and 12 versus ten and younger.

And one of the more surprising findings, you know, because the more social media you do, the more you see the good and the bad.

So the earlier you go you'll see all of it, you know?

But what we found, surprisingly, was that the later initiators didn't ever come aroun to any as much of the positive sides of social media.

There was a lot of fear in starting social media, maybe from the family, you know, context and from stories, you know, narrative that are out there in the media.

And so they they were always kind of hesitant, you know, to us the platform, but as opposed to the earlier users started to they saw all of it, you know, the positives and negatives.

And they were able to realize that some of it could be about civic engagement, about raising awareness about issues they care about.

And that is the one thin that the internet does have over the offline interactions is to be able to make an impression in people's minds in those pro-social aims.

And connect people who but for the internet would never have been connected in real life.

That's it for this edition of To The Contrary, let's keep talking on social media, including X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Reach out to us @tothecontrary and visit our website, the address is on the screen and whether you agree or think to the contrary, see you next time.

Funding for To The Contrary provided by: You're watching PBS.