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I took my wife and kids for breakfast at a restaurant a few weeks ago. We were the first to arrive – the consequence of having kids younger than three – and found a nice spot next to the play area, allowing us to keep an eye on a toddler still learning how to balance on a jungle gym.
Not much later, another family arrived and chose a table beside us. Their two older kids immediately jumped on the jungle gym, but instead of climbing or sliding down, they took out their phones and, well, vanished into a void. When we left almost two hours later, they were still in the same spot, immersed in their digital worlds.
Life is very different for Generation Alpha, the moniker assigned to kids born after 2010. They grow up inhabiting two worlds, a real one and a digital one, and they have to learn how to navigate both. What is more, because of the speed at which technology changes, their parents – the ones supposed to guide them through unfamiliar territory – are ill-equipped to do so.
For most parents, this is a scary new world. Some take on the algorithms and successfully limit access to phones or time spent on social media. But many, perhaps for fear of isolating their children socially or because they do not have time or the inclination to devise a sensible strategy, simply back away, and leave their kids to their own devices. The mother beside us at breakfast did her best to coax the boy on the jungle gym away from his phone, but ultimately gave up.
It is not only parents who are worried about this social revolution. In his new book, the Anxious Generation, the American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt addresses the paradox of modern childhood: overprotection in the physical world and underprotection in the digital realm. He delves into the growing mental health crisis among adolescents, linking it to the decline of play-based childhood and the rise of phone-based lifestyles. He highlights the detrimental effects of social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction caused by excessive phone use, noting the different threats for boys and girls. The book even explores spiritual aspects, arguing that a phone-centric life hinders the cultivation of virtue, community, and self-transcendence.
Haidt heads the school of thought that argues that smartphones and social media are the main culprits behind the rising mental health crisis among youth. But not everyone agrees. A second school challenges the first by questioning the quality of existing research. They argue that the current evidence is insufficient to make definitive causal links between social media and mental health issues, pointing out that the available data often indicates only small or non-existent effects of the quantity of screen time, for example, on mental health.
A third school – let’s call them school 2.1 – argues that most existing studies use the wrong data. Instead of focusing on the quantity of screen time, these scholars argue that research should delve into how, when, why, and by whom social media is used. This approach recognises large individual differences in media effects, with some adolescents experiencing negative effects, others experiencing positive effects and most showing no significant impact.
I asked one of South Africa’s leading experts on social media usage, Doug Parry, about these schools of thought. Parry’s research, published in Nature Human Behaviour, reveals a substantial discrepancy between self-reported estimates and actual social media usage, thereby questioning the reliability of conclusions drawn from these estimates. In other research, he also shows that a participant’s level of depression can influence the accuracy of their self-reported social media use, posing challenges when studying its impact on depression. His research has been cited in European courts drawing up social media legislation.
‘I think I see some truth in all three schools of thought, but I primarily align with school 2.1’, says Parry.
‘In terms of school one, people perceive social media to effect their lives negatively and, as research from school 2.1 highlights, a proportion of adolescents certainly experience negative effects. There is no doubt that certain types of social media use are harmful, like cyberbullying, online harassment, and negative comparisons. And although most of my research has not focused on the link between social media and well-being, what I have done does align with this idea of negative media effects.’
Parry is referring to a new metastudy with several co-authors – still under review – that, after examining 127 studies that encompass over one million adolescents, reveals a small but significant correlation between social media use and internalising symptoms such as anxiety and depression, both in terms of time spent and user engagement.1 This pattern is consistent in both clinical and community samples, although only 8% of the studies focused on clinical groups.
‘But I also have to admit that most studies in this area are quite low quality and of limited informational value, and that the claims that Haidt and others make generally step beyond what the data are able to show clearly.’
We need more and better data. Says Parry: ‘We need to focus on what specific actions people are doing, what content they interact with, who, when, where, why to get closer to understanding whether, why, and for whom social media are harmful.’
This is even more true in South Africa. In another paper, soon to be published in the South African Journal of Science, Parry highlights the gap in digital trace data usage between the Global South and North, stressing that without direct access to such data, significant insights into online behaviour and its societal impacts remain unexplored in South Africa.2 Parry points to the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) as a model which mandates data sharing with researchers and could serve as a template for similar legislation in South Africa. He argues that adopting such measures is essential for understanding and managing the systemic risks posed by social media platforms, especially in the context of South Africa’s evolving digital landscape.
Until we know more, however, parents are largely in the dark. In his book, Haidt advocates for collective action to foster a healthier childhood. He outlines specific roles for different stakeholders: governments and tech companies should enforce regulations to protect children online; schools should implement phone-free policies to enhance learning and social interaction; parents should establish norms for technology use, encouraging real-world play and independence. None of that sounds like bad advice.
But before we jump to extreme conclusions about the negative effects of social media, a more sensible step would be to gather as much understanding about the phenomenon as possible. Just as children learn to conquer the twists and turns of a jungle gym, Generation Alpha and their parents must quickly learn how to balance their digital and real-world experiences. Hopefully, science will soon be able to help.
An edited version of this article was published on News24. Support more such writing by signing up for a paid subscription. The image was created with Midjourney v6.
Fassi, L., Thomas, K., Parry, D.A., Leyland-Craggs, A., Ford, T.J. and Orben, A., 2023. Social media use and internalising symptoms in clinical and community adolescent samples: a systematic review and meta-analysis. medRxiv, pp.2023-09.
Parry, D. A. (2023, October 12). Without access to social media platform data we risk being left in the dark. https://doi.org/10.31730/osf.io/j3twc
In his book "The Coddling of the American Mind", I understand that Jonathan Haidt proposes that its not phones which are causing anxiety, depression, etc, but the loss of activities that phone usage are replacing. Which means that although there may be correlation between phone usage and social / psychological disorders, the former may not cause the latter, but the latter caused by changing social habits.