{"id":18308,"date":"2024-04-18T05:07:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T09:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=18308"},"modified":"2024-05-08T14:53:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T18:53:56","slug":"social-media-harms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=18308","title":{"rendered":"Social media harms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The way social media harms our kids has been in the news lately. I am not talking about the Online Harms Act, which has been the subject of a number of <a href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=18232\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">my recent posts<\/a>. I will also not be talking (at least not in this post) about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-ca\/news\/canada\/jamie-sarkonak-governor-generals-online-harm-symposium-was-unbefitting-of-her-office\/ar-BB1lHKWs\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the inappropriateness<\/a> of the Governor General hosting a forum about Online Harms when a bill is being reviewed by Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>Four of the largest school boards in Canada <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/canada\/article-ontario-schools-social-media-lawsuit\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">launched a lawsuit<\/a> against the owners of Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok. The suit accuses them of &#8220;negligently designing products that disrupt learning and rewire student behaviour while leaving educators to manage the fallout.&#8221; The Boards of Education are seeking $4.5B and asking for a redesign of the platforms &#8220;to keep students safe.&#8221; School Boards are represented by personal injury firm <a href=\"https:\/\/neinstein.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Neinstein LLP<\/a>, which has taken the case on contingency. More than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edweek.org\/policy-politics\/school-district-lawsuits-against-social-media-companies-are-piling-up\/2024\/01\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">200 school boards in the US<\/a> have launched similar suits.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed-ssl.ted.com\/talks\/wael_ghonim_let_s_design_social_media_that_drives_real_change.html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" align=right frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe current discussion of social media harms is hardly opening up a new topic. <\/p>\n<p>Eight years ago, I wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=9072\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Is Social Media Better At Breaking Than Making?&#8221;<\/a> That post referred to a Tom Friedman piece in the New York Times (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/03\/opinion\/social-media-destroyer-or-creator.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Social Media: Destroyer or Creator?&#8221;<\/a>). It also included a TED Talk by Wael Ghonim, a former Google employee in Egypt whose Facebook page was credited with helping launch the Arab Spring. In his talk, Ghonim says &#8220;Five years ago, I said, \u2018If you want to liberate society, all you need is the Internet.\u2019 Today, I believe if we want to liberate society, we first need to liberate the Internet.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The talk is worth watching. In my view, it stands the test of time.<\/p>\n<p>But, let&#8217;s return to that school board lawsuit. The claim is that these social media platforms &#8220;rewire student behaviour while leaving educators to manage the fallout.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>A new book by Jonathan Haidt is attracting some attention on this theme of &#8220;rewiring&#8221;. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic\/dp\/0593655036\/ref=sr_1_1\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness&#8221;<\/a> was released last month. He claims that social media platforms are responsible for &#8220;displacing physical play and in-person socializing.&#8221; How? By &#8220;designing a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids\u2019 eyes and ears&#8221;. In doing so, &#8220;these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>A critical <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-024-00902-2\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">review of the book in Nature<\/a> triggered a lengthy rebuttal <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHaidt\/status\/1774571680511508601\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">on Twitter<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The author of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-024-00902-2\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">review in Nature<\/a> is Candice Odgers, associate dean for research and professor of psychological science and informatics at University of California, Irvine. She has a distinctly Canadian connection. Odgers co-leads international networks on child development for <a href=\"https:\/\/cifar.ca\/bios\/candice-odgers\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canadian Institute for Advanced Research<\/a> in Toronto. She says science doesn&#8217;t support the thesis of digital technologies rewiring children\u2019s brains, causing &#8220;an epidemic of mental illness.&#8221; According to Odgers, Haidt&#8217;s work confuses correlation with causation. Specifically, she says studies have not found use of social-media predicts or causes depression. Rather, the research shows those who already have mental-health problems use such platforms differently compared to others.<\/p>\n<p>Haidt&#8217;s response, a 984 word, 6311 character <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHaidt\/status\/1774571680511508601\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">post on Twitter (X)<\/a>, has attracted more than 1.5 million views. (I remember when tweets were restricted to a maximum of 140 characters.) His post includes links to collections of resources referenced in his book.<\/p>\n<p>That academic debate is certain to continue.<\/p>\n<p>How should social media platforms be regulated? What is the role of schools, teachers, and parents to assume respective responsibilities for kids&#8217; use of devices and apps?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The way social media harms our kids has been in the news lately. I am not talking about the Online Harms Act, which has been the subject of a number of my recent posts. I will also not be talking (at least not in this post) about the inappropriateness of the Governor General hosting a &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=18308\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Social media harms<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Social media harms &#8226; Telecom Trends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The way social media harms our kids has been in the news lately. 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