“Hadn’t we enforced screen time limit that night, my daughter’s friend might not have tried to kill himself”.
During the Q&A session a woman in the audience explained she had just introduced new screentime rules for her children. But in an evil twist of fate, this was the night her daughter’s friend had tried to reach out in his darkest hour, nearly ending his life after his outreach went unanswered. Thankfully, his suicide attempt was unsuccessful, but it was a stark reminder that our kids’ use of technology can be hard to predict. Because screen time had indeed been linked to teenage depression and suicide. But this was thought to cause suicidal proclivities, not be the communication device that could actually prevent it.
To be true, few families who enforce screentime limits will have these unfortunate experiences. But both parents and experts are worrying. Our digitally native children’s mental health is deteriorating at an alarming rate.
The Research
To help provide answers to this deeply worrisome trend, Dr. Jean Twenge conducted her now world famous “iGen study”. Her viral The Atlantic article with the quite alarming headline, Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? and following book with the even more tendentious title,
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood–and What That Means for the Rest of Us leave little doubt. Our kids are being destroyed by their smartphones. Twenge’s studies have been quoted thousands of times all acround the world. She has influenced parents, teachers, universities, governments and even Silicon Valley executives who keep their own children free of the drug they push on others. Andoid and iOS updates now offer screen time controls – a welcome feature in my own family’s daily life.
But there are a few problems with Twenge’s viral study. It doesn’t really prove much. The link between screen time and mental health is far from established. None of the research I have followed and conducted myself over several years can prove that digital technology is a major cause of our children’s rising rates of anxiety, depression and suicide. As a matter of fact, even Khan Academy now uses this particular correlation as an example of statistically invalid conclusions. And if we use technology as a scapegoat for these very serious trends, we risk deflecting our attention from the real culprits. Because it is true that our children’s mental health is deteriorating. And in this context, blaming technology for our children’s misgivings is as egregious as a forensic investigator pointing to the wrong suspect while the real killer goes free.
To be fair, Twenge has consistently supported her research with a solid amount of longitudinal data. Over the years I have referenced her findings against the volumes of clickbait articles and anecdotal opinion pieces that dominate generationally themed headlines. When Twenge’s research demonstrated a significant increase in narcissism over several decades, she provided a clear link between birth year and score on the narcissism index over time. Her book The Me Generation was lumped together with cranky old pundits bemoaning “kids nowadays”. But you just can’t fight with data, and Twenge’s data was solid. The problem was that narcissism was a period effect, measuring a trend which was affecting all generations. At least until Gen Z came around and turned the tide.
Millennials guilt tripped again
This time not for their narcissism, but for their children’s smartphone use. But Twenge’s findings are now more dicey and open to interpretation. First of all, Twenge finds correlation, not causation. She admits this herself, but the conclusion she draws is nonetheless one of cause and effect. Most of Twenge’s findings are based on the fact that youth depression and suicide increased along with the adoption rate of smartphones. This is about as scientifically convincing as claiming that ice cream causes drowning because these events happen at the same time – in the summer. Other trends that have coevolved with teen depression, such as student debt, opioid addictions and environmental degradation, are conveniently left out.
Effects in the single digits
But ok, let’s say these variables are naturally linked. After all, it makes sense that staring at a screen all day would give you a pretty distorted view of reality and deprive you of real life experiences. Social media in particular has been pointed out as an amplifier of antisocial behaviors such as cyberbullying, incessantly comparing oneself to others and FOMO. And it turns out to have some association with teens’ depressive symptoms. It’s just that the effects are rather small and it’s only significant for girls. Moreover, the relationship is curvilinear, so non-users are also less happy than light to medium users. Similar studies have been done in Britain with the same weak curvilinear results. Instead of acknowledging the power other variables have on mental health, they are described as “pathways” that increase both screen use and depression. In other words, when kids are both depressed and use screens excessively, it’s likely a manifestation of other ills.
Twenge was only able to establish an r = 0.06 for the correlation between social media and depressive symptoms for girls. There was no significant effect for boys. This means that while the depression among young girls is increasing, 94% of the increase cannot be explained by social media alone. A recent APA study found that although as many as 45% teens felt judged in social media, 55% found it to be a source of support. Twenge’s report include no data on potential positive effects. Dr Przybylski at Oxford University believes the effect is even lower, in fact less than one percent (.036). In other words, our children’s killer is still on the loose.
Teen suicides, suicidal thoughts and attempts increased with ⅓ in the first half of the 2010s. The rise was sharper for those who used electronic media excessively. But even here a different story appears when we study the data in higher resolution. For one thing, the trend that move girls to try or commit suicide started before smartphones and social media with a 28% increase in the 10 year dataset collected before 2009. The suicide increase is also strongest among demographic groups that typically fare worse in society. The WHO collects astounding statistics on how suicides in low income countries vastly outnumber those in privileged countries. Several studies, including Twenge’s own data, show that depression goes in tandem with income inequality, a fact she barely mentions in passing.
Reverse causality?
Do screens really cause depression or do depressed kids take to the internet to soothe their troubles? We know self-harming individuals often co-ruminate with other sufferers, and this can intensify the risk. But does not Twenge’s study then point to a symptom rather than a cause? And in the cases where healthy communities are formed online, might these mental agonies have been even greater if they didn’t have digital media to help them seek comfort, sympathy, kindred spirits etc.? This was clearly the case for the friend of the daughter of the woman in my audience. And for kids like Mats who most of his wheelchair bound life made strong friendships in the digital worlds. Worlds where he wasn’t defined or limited by his real-world handicap.
Dichotomizing “online” and “offline”
Finally, Twenge makes little effort to distinguish the various activities young people do online. Pornography, cyberbullying and mind numbing videos are lumped together with YouTube tutoring for homework help, facetiming BFFs or selling your homemade crafts on Etsy. Using “online” as a single category is not very meaningful.
In an educational research project I worked on a few years ago we tried to see how different types of online activities such as using the internet for learning or entrepreneurship would vary significantly with how young people perceive their future. What we found was that young people who spend a lot of screen time for learning or entrepreneurial activities have a much more positive and resilient outlook on their own future than youth who don’t use these tools. In other words, our findings were starkly opposite to Twenge’s findings who didn’t make these distinctions.
Our children’s other stressors
None of this is to trivialize the possibility that excessive screen time might worsen mental health problems in some adolescents – or anyone else for that matter. In fact, digital media are designed to pull us in. Netflix’s CEO was honest when he admitted that the company’s main competitor is our sleep. But let’s not fall for knee jerk fears and blame our kids’ toys for their miseries. At worst it could keep us from searching for more important stressors that are praying on our children’s happiness. And that would be far less responsible than letting them keep their phones.