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Panicking About Your Kids’ Phones? New Research Says Don’t

“A growing number of academics are challenging assumptions about the negative effects of social media and smartphones on children” (New York Times).

Today I want to do a very interesting fact check. The one that I chose is from The New York Times which suggests a study that a correlation between social media and negative effects on children are not linked. I want to pursue a career in teaching so this study really interested me. I think it’s important to understand what is making kids so anxious.

SOOO lets see what research says about this topic….

The article commented on the idea that social media and smartphones are the reason for a recent spike in anxiety and depression in teens but the latest research,by two psychology professors, combs through about 40 studies that have examined the link between social media use and both depression and anxiety among adolescents. They found that the link, according to the professors, is small and inconsistent.

With that fact being said, I took it too Duck Duck go to find out more about this topic. I found articles from the New York times here as well on this topic. Duck Duck go took me to a site that led me to find more reliable facts on this subject. The facts were a bit confusing. Some researchers like Ms. Odgers argue the evidence doesn’t support the panic over time spent on smartphones. Instead the researchers worry that the focus on keeping children away from screens is making it hard to have more productive conversations about topics like how to make phones more useful for low-income people, who tend to use them more, or how to protect the privacy of teenagers who share their lives online. The article also held the other idea by  psychologist Jean Twenge, who argued that a recent rise in suicide and depression among teenagers was linked to the arrival of smartphones. But after contuining reading even futher studies show no direct correlation of the actual smart phone and social media linking to depression. 

Now let’s take a moment to read across The New York Times how reliable is this source? By looking at the article, I can see at least that they are reporting results consistent with what the study, and provide links to more information on it in the article. The article holds several links to more information on the study. After going upstream on the original article I was able to find out information I needed to understand this study. The article included reliable sources to back up the information. For example, the World Health Organization provided information about how infants and young children should be exposed to less screen time to eliminate this future problem although research did not find a high correlation, they do suggest less screen time is healthier. .

While going upstream I found information from The World Health Organization that said that, “infants under 1 year old should not be exposed to electronic screens and that children between the ages of 2 and 4 should not have more than one hour of “sedentary screen time” each day.” This is because in some cases eliminating, screen time for children under the age of 5 will result in healthier adults, the organization, a United Nations health agency announced. The article also provided links to go upstream on this topic as well which was very helpful when checking the facts.

In addition, the original article led me to a research review found here, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.13190. The author of this article is Candice L. Odgers, so i decided to go upstream on the author to find out about her research. I concluded that she is very reliable. I typed in on google, “Candice L. Odgers’ ‘ and it took me to an article about him from physcandnuero.duke.edu. I was able to conclude she is a reliable researcher. Her research focuses on how social inequalities and early adversity influence children’s future health and well-being, which is what my original article focused on overall.  At this point, I think I’ve gathered enough information to determine what the agreement is on this claim. The journal is reliable as well as the researchers, so we can say with some certainty this article is professional. The original study does not find social media, and phone use linked directly to the anxiousness and depression in young teens, but research suggest that limited screen time can definitely be healthier!