Social Media and Digital Distraction

The recently proposed government bill to restrict social media access for anyone under the age of 16 has become a hot-button topic in the media. Putting aside the mechanics of how a ban might be enacted, that the government is attempting to put such a restriction in place highlights the growing body of evidence about the influence social media has on young people's lives. Indeed, this move to restrict social media access follows similar efforts in Australia, the USA, the United Kingdom, Norway, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Greece.

The ubiquitousness of cellphones and rapid spread of social media have occurred alongside rapid global increases in anxiety and mental health disorders in young people. Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, Dr. Jean M. Twenge, has delved into the connection between smartphones, social media and youth mental wellbeing. Her findings are that there is a causal link between smartphone ownership and easy access to social media, and a rapid increase in teenage mental health issues (read more here and here). While the context of her work is American, the trends she identifies are global.

Many young people struggle to put the content of social media into context. Frequently, it is only the highlights that are shown, portraying a version of life without the inevitable failures, frustrations, rejections, embarrassments, struggles and challenges. Consequently, when things don't go to plan for young people, they can be left thinking it's just them without the realisation that negative things are simply a part of life that we all have to deal with.

"The smartphone led to a global rewiring of human social interaction — when most people own smartphones and use social media, everyone is impacted, whether they use these technologies or not." - Dr. Jean M. Twenge

Stuff - Social media vs mental health: The silent battle facing young Kiwis

A recent New Zealand Listener article, 'Lost in Cyberspace', supported the idea that young people's online access needs to be restricted. Roy Birkbeck, founder of B416, a parent group demanding restrictions on social media and devices for those under 16 years of age, painted a grim picture of the online environment, explaining that with voluntary safety codes, New Zealand has one of the least protected and most unregulated regimes in the world:

"For a lot of these platforms, it's like an arms race; they're trying to capture our attention on the phone. It's now not just about capturing our time and attention, it's intimacy. It's proven that Big Tech can get more engagement through friendship and intimacy, so they've brought out platforms such as character.ai, which are trying to develop relationships with our children." - Roy Birkbeck

An article published recently in the Washington Post ('Teens are sexting with AI—here's what parents should know) highlighted how quickly this technology has become problematic, explaining that teenagers are having romantic and sexual conversations with AI chatbots. "The chats can range from romance- and innuendo-filled to sexually graphic and violent, according to interviews with parents, conversations posted on social media, and experts. They are largely taking place on “AI companion” tools, but general-purpose AI apps like ChatGPT can also create sexual content with a few clever prompts." The article described concerns that such interactions can create unrealistic expectations of sex and relationship dynamics and could lead to further withdrawal from real-world relationships.

Young New Zealanders are among the highest online users in the world, spending an average of 42 hours per week on screens, ahead of the OECD average of 35 hours. In New Zealand, the average age of first getting a smartphone is 11. And with a growing body of evidence from across the globe showing that the more time spent online, the greater the risk to mental health, it is perhaps no wonder that New Zealand ranks poorly for the mental health of our young people.

Interestingly, in America, there is a pocket of growing demand for Montessori schools, an educational philosophy that eschews technology. That pocket is in Silicon Valley, where many of the children of the workers in the technology industry go to school. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, has stated that he did not allow his children to get smartphones until they were 14, and he is publicly backing moves to impose 16 as a minimum age for social media access. If those involved in developing these online tools and devices don't want their children using them, there is a strong message in that for the rest of us.

The rise in extremist views promoted online poses a growing threat to young men in particular. Writing in 'How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World, ' cognitive-behavioural therapist Donald J. Robertson raises concerns over the impact of modern-day influencers. Robertson compares them to the Sophists of Ancient Greece^, who perfected the art of training the wealthy to gain political power by telling their audiences what they wanted to hear and what would capture their attention, rather than what was good for them to hear. Influencers do the same, inevitably appealing to our existing prejudices rather than challenging them. Robertson notes that "acquiring our beliefs passively, in this way, risks making us dangerously dependent on the opinions of other people, by reducing our ability to think for ourselves. We get opinions—the appearance of knowledge—rather than genuine knowledge."

Furthermore, "following someone else's moral or psychological guidance is like following their directions to get through a forest. It only works until you get lost again. You would be much better off, in the long run, if you could learn how to use a map and compass—if, that is, you were guided by reason and your own philosophy of life."

Our role, as the adults in young men's lives, is to help them understand themselves, to know what their values are and those of their whānau, to develop their own philosophy of life. Without this, young men will be more vulnerable to the influence of those they encounter online.

^The Sophists played a central role in the breakdown of democracy in Athens and the fall of the Greek empire.

Adolescence

Many will be familiar with the recent Netflix series 'Adolescence', which has heightened awareness of the manosphere* and shone a light on incel# culture and a range of behaviours that typically go under the umbrella of toxic masculinity. If you haven't seen the series, watch it with your son.

Young men across much of the globe are over-represented in a range of negative statistics: educational underachievement, lower life expectancy, more likely to be incarcerated or have a criminal record, more likely to die by suicide/road death/drowning and less likely to enrol in and graduate from university. Young males are more likely than previous generations to be living at home with their parents for extended periods, a phenomenon dubbed 'failure to launch', a failure to engage with what previous generations would have typically seen as 'getting on with life'. Taken together, these factors have created a growing number of disengaged young men across the Western World, young men vulnerable to those preaching toxic excuses.

'Adolescence' portrays extreme views and associated extreme behaviours. Consequently, it is easy to dismiss the content as 'not applicable' to one's son and familial context. However, the underlying ideology exposed in 'Adolescence' has permeated beyond just extreme groups of alienated young men and has attracted a growing online audience. The often toxic messages are amplified and shared by a growing online community. Consequently, the likelihood of young men encountering this toxic online content increases daily.

Writing in 'Men Who Hate Women' Laura Bates describes some of the commonalities of young men who fall under the influence of the manosphere:

"What they do seem to have in common is a craving to belong. And this need is met in spades by a community that excels at conveying a tribal sense of cohesion. What better way to suck in new recruits and repel criticism than to borrow an origin story that immediately positions all acolytes as heroic, doomed visionaries, and all critics or disbelievers as either pitifully ignorant or part of the oppressive system itself?" - Laura Bates, Men Who Hate Women

Christian Picciolini is an American former extremist who founded the Free Radicals Project, a nonprofit organisation working to prevent extremism and support individuals in leaving hate groups. In an interview with the Atlantic newspaper, he explained that "Thirty years ago, marginalised, broken, angry young people had to be met face-to-face to get recruited into a movement. Nowadays, those millions and millions of young people are living most of their lives online if they don't have real world connections. And, they're finding a community online, instead of in the real world, and having conversations about promoting violence."

Bates, posing as 'Alex', spent time surfing incel websites and commented that "the most frustrating part of my experience...was seeing posts from men who were vulnerable or in pain, many of them young boys going through the typical tumult of adolescent hormonal angst and looking for some guidance to help them through it, and then watching as these men and boys collided catastrophically with deeply twisted and misogynistic views, supported by pseudo-science and fake statistics, at precisely the moment when they may have been most impressionable."

What Can We Do About It?

Many of us will need to spend some time understanding the online world that many young people inhabit. Talking to your son about the places he goes to online (in a non-judgmental way) would be a good starting point. Has he encountered misogynistic, racist, sexist or other inappropriate content? What did he think about it, and what did he do?

Any opinions or ideas shared by young men that we are not comfortable with must be challenged. Turning a blind eye to an inappropriate comment because "it's just a bit of banter" is effectively giving your tacit approval. The often quoted proverb 'It takes a village to raise a child' has never been truer. Unfortunately, it is becoming too easy for young people to shrink back from the village, and instead of being mentored and guided by a support network inside and outside of the home, it is easy to be influenced and manipulated by a network found online.

We need to be planned and deliberate in building the village around our young people. Being involved in sports, music, drama and/or cultural activities helps young people to find their place in a group environment where everyone is working towards a shared goal. It helps to build an in-person social network as well as providing benefits for mental and physical health. Plan opportunities for your son to interact with the supportive adults in his life. Make time for whānau activities and one-on-one time with your son.

*manosphere - a varied collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.

#incel - abbreviated form of involuntary celibate, a term associated with an online subculture of mostly males who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. They often blame, objectify and denigrate women and girls as a result.

ICT in Education

New Zealand's educational achievement, measured in international testing and through national monitoring, has been in a steady decline for many years. The introduction of the NCEA Literacy and Numeracy assessments is part of the attempt to arrest this decline, an essential goal for the young people of New Zealand and our society and economy as a whole.

The causes of New Zealand's educational decline are many, and lifting achievement is a complex challenge. One component of the decline has been the enthusiastic manner in which technology has been utilised in New Zealand classrooms. Devices and the associated educational software are promoted as the future for education. Young people live in a world where such technology is ubiquitous; surley, then, it behoves schools to prepare them using this technology? It's a compelling argument at face value, but it ignores the negative impact that ICT often has on learning and achievement. So, if learning and achievement are central roles of a school, the place of ICT needs to be reconsidered.

Julie Cullen and Dr Samantha Marsh, writing in the New Zealand Herald (Kiwi kids’ screen use: Is it time to reconsider device use in schools?), note that young New Zealanders have some of the highest rates of screen use in the world, both at home and in the classroom. This is at odds with global trends where using devices to learn is uncommon, even in the wealthiest countries. Cullen and Marsh explain that recent analysis of PISA data (an international assessment of the academic performance of 15-year-olds) found that "very intensive" device use (more than a couple of times per week) in classrooms is not just linked to academic decline, it causes it:

"Screens can be used in different ways in schools for online learning activities and for different subjects.

However, the only digital activity that was linked to improvements in reading included “browsing the internet for schoolwork”.

All other activities, including doing homework online, using learning apps, educational games and electronic textbooks, among others, were linked to declines in learning outcomes. This was consistent across all subjects assessed, including English, science and maths.

Checking email was the only online activity that had no impact on learning. Especially in primary school-aged students, frequent device use had a clear negative relationship with learning outcomes.

Concerningly, in schools with good internet access, where teachers have resources to learn how to use digital devices and are confident in using them in teaching, academic performance was lower compared to schools that did not have these resources. This is the opposite to what we may have expected." - Julie Cullen and Dr Samantha Marsh

Screens have become a distraction, encouraging multitasking and diverting students' attention and focus. Furthermore, the inattentive behaviours associated with device use have become ingrained and affect people's ability to concentrate on complex tasks and read extended passages of text, both key skills for academic success.

Writing in 'The EdTech Revolution has Failed' Jared Cooney Hovarth presents data to challenge widely held assumptions about the impact of ICT on student learning. He quotes from an OECD international review of the impact of computers in education, reporting:

“Students who use computers very frequently at school do a lot worse in most learning outcomes…And perhaps the most disappointing finding of the report is that technology is of little help in bridging the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students.” - Jared Cooney Hovarth

In exploring the reasons for this, Hovarth examines the impact of device use on attention. Why attention? A commonly used phrase amongst educational researchers is "Attention is the gateway to learning." In other words, students need to be focused on whatever information they need to shift from their working memory to their long-term memory to learn it. However, frequent screen use has trained the brains of the young people who use them (and indeed the adults who use them) to multitask—to flick from task to task, giving little real attention to any one thing. Such an approach is the antithesis of learning.

"This is why, when using a computer for homework, students typically last fewer than 6 minutes before accessing social media, messaging friends, and engaging with other digital distractions. This is why, when using a laptop during class, students typically spend 38 minutes of every hour off-task. This is why, when getting paid as part of a research study to focus on a 20-minute computerized lesson, nearly 40% of students were unable to stop themselves from multitasking. It’s not that the students of today have abnormally weak constitutions; it’s that they have spent thousands of hours training themselves to use digital devices in a manner guaranteed to impair learning and performance. It’s also that many of the apps being run on those devices were carefully engineered to pull young people away from whatever they were doing." - Jared Cooney Hovarth

What Can We Do About It?

As a school, we have asked teachers to carefully consider the best approach for student learning in their subject area and with each learning task. The message is that if a particular program or app is not essential for a task, then do it with pen and paper. Those who have already moved in this direction over the last couple of years have reported increased student engagement with learning, better quality student work and higher levels of achievement.

We are aware that in some subjects, for example, Digital Technology, Digital Art and Design and Visual Communication, the use of a laptop is essential. In some other subjects, such as Statistics, certain topics require a laptop. The continuing moves by NZQA, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, towards online assessments are troubling. The Literacy and Numeracy Achievement Standards are digital examinations, despite the growing body of evidence that comprehension levels are lower when reading from a screen. Such moves present challenges in reducing ICT use.

Parents also play an important role. Talking with your son about the amount of time he is spending online and, more importantly, what he is doing while online is important. As parents, we would not let our children disappear from the house for hours at a time with no idea where they are, who they are associating with and what they are getting up to. Yet, we often allow our children to disappear for hours at a time online with no idea where they are, who they are associating with or what they are getting up to.

Being a young person today, and being the parent of a young person, brings with it a multitude of 'new' challenges. These are challenges that we cannot shy away from. Young men need us to take an interest in their lives, both online and in real life, to provide them with guidance and to hold them to account when their choices in either environment fall short of the values we expect them to live by.