Cork Views: 4 rules to bring in NOW to get teens off phones

Exactly a year ago, Jonathan Haidt shone a spotlight on the need to get teenagers off smartphones, with the publication of The Anxious Generation.

Now, the Netflix documentary Adolescence has turned the dial up another notch to the point it is reaching tipping point for real change.

While academia continues to query whether social media is responsible for poor mental health in teenagers, Adolescence has lifted the lid on what kids are really being exposed to.

The most recent analysis in the British Medical Journal argues there is no one-size-fits all answer, that recent restrictions on smartphones in schools in England were not associated with benefits to adolescent mental health. That blanket restrictions are ‘stop-gap’ solutions doing little to support children’s longer-term healthy engagement with digital spaces across schools. That a right-based approach is preferable ‘to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of all children in digital environments.’

It is difficult to fathom how this has been allowed to happen. Over the last 10-15 years, not only have we as adults embraced smartphones and social media as essential tools for daily life, unbelievably we have almost unquestioningly allowed kids as young as eight and nine to do the same.

We have allowed our kids and teens to sit in their rooms, or awake at night, glued to their phones as they are exposed to bullying, humiliation, and overwhelming negative emotions. And we have the audacity to argue social media is not harmful to their mental health - that the evidence is correlational or linked and not causal.

Pornography

The UK Children’s Commissioner, in a report in 2023, drew together research from focus groups aged 13-19, examining online content that they were routinely exposed to. The research included a survey of 1,000 young people aged 16-21.

The report identified depictions of degradation, sexual coercion, aggression and exploitation as commonplace and disproportionally targeted against teenage girls. It found the average age children first saw pornography was 13. By age nine, 10% had seen pornography, one in four had seen it by 11, and half of children had seen pornography by 13.

The researchers outlined how the majority of young people (79%) had encountered violent pornography before the age of 18, with frequent users of pornography more likely to engage in physically aggressive sex acts.

Teenage brain

Intuitively, we know this material is damaging to children and teenagers. But the evidence supports this as well.

Although the brain stops growing in size by early adolescence, the teen years are all about fine-tuning how the brain works. It finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late twenties. The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature.

As the prefrontal cortex is still maturing, teens may struggle with tasks requiring good judgement, impulse control, and the ability to see long-term consequences of their actions.

The underdeveloped prefrontal cortex can contribute to impulsive decisions, leading to risky behaviours as teens struggle to grasp the potential consequences of their actions.

All this means these brain functions are nowhere near ready for what is being asked of them with the kind of nasty material being presented to their immature brains online.

Until access to appropriate content online is fixed by regulators, children and teens should be nowhere near smartphones and the damaging content their brains just cannot handle.

The culture around smartphones suggesting it is OK for primary school kids to either own a smartphone or use one without supervision is appalling and should be rigorously challenged.

Lost autonomy

At the same time as the smartphone explosion has come a movement of young people off the streets and predominantly indoors, a trend aggravated by the explosion of cars in cities and the arrival of digital devices such as smartphones that pushed children off their bikes and out of urban play spaces into their bedrooms to socialise online.

Social relationships are seen as critical to the maintenance of health and a lack of them correlates with feelings of loneliness.

Haidt suggests four key steps are needed to reduce the epidemic of mental illness that has resulted from the ‘great rewiring of childhood’.

• No smartphones in primary school
• No social media before 16
• Phone-free schools
• Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.

Since his book last year, social movements are beginning to grow to address these key issues. But they are not growing fast enough.

Australia has introduced legislation to ensure teens have to be 16 or older to use online social media, and that the government will hold platforms responsible and accountable to ensure compliance.

Last August, then Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly declared a ‘public health emergency’ over the damage social media is wreaking on young people, while appointing a health taskforce, chaired by ex-senator Jillian van Turnhout, to report on the harm done to children by social media and on any gaps in existing laws. Mr Donnelly called for a ban on social media for under 16s, supported by a statement by the Irish Medical Organisation.

The IMO also supported a proposal from then Education Minister Normal Foley, to ban mobile phones from schools, and added that smartphones should be banned for all under-16s. These moves were not met with widespread public approval at the time.

We talk about the importance of keeping cigarettes, vapes and drugs out of the hands of kids. We talk about making sure kids wear cycle helmets on their bikes and never walking home alone at night or getting separated from friends when out in the town.

Now we all need to talk about getting smartphones out of the hands of kids. Not giving them as Christmas or confirmation presents. Not allowing them to go up to their bedrooms with online devices behind closed doors.

Also, a public health campaign to increase digital literacy around smartphones is overdue. This includes messaging around how social media can make kids feel bad, how real friends are better than virtual ones, how watching screens together is better than in isolation, how technology is great but not when it is following you around in your pocket, and keeping you from sleep at night.

We need to be talking about it in groups that combine city councils, teachers, parents, the HSE, health professionals, the private sector, and community organisations, until we find a solution in line with robust regulatory change.

Kids need to be kids, playing outside, cycling to school, giggling in corners, gathering in parks, getting up to mischief. It is up to us adults to make that happen and stop wondering why mental illness has skyrocketed. The answer is staring us in the face.