Really? Screen addictions matter, not screen time

That was in the New York Times news pages, while the After Babel team had an op-ed slot

For a decade or two, I have had a standard response on Twitter (now X) when conservatives celebrate something they see as a victory in the American public square. You know, we’re talking about things that let them jump on social media and say: “Man, we owned the libs on that one!”

That’s when I type: “What does @NYTimes say?“

Lots of folks respond with jabs like these: “What are you talking about? The New York Times doesn’t matter anymore! It’s irrelevant! The Times has been wrong so many times that nobody believes what it says …” and so forth and so on.

They’re wrong, of course. What they’re saying is that nobody in their half of America cares about headlines on page one of the great Gray Lady. They don’t understand that the New York Times is still the lens through which, more often than not, the leaders of their local newsrooms view the world. As my friend Rod Dreher keeps saying, the New York Times is Pravda for the American establishment.

Here’s a variation on that theme. During my decade-plus on Capitol Hill, I heard quite a few people say: “How do you know that someone is an inside-the-Beltway Republican? They still have National Public Radio set as their car’s top radio station.”

Thus, it matters when people see a headline like this one on a New York Times op-ed: “We Don’t Have to Give In to the Smartphones.” As you would imagine, the byline on that essay pointed to the team at After Babel — Jonathan Haidt, Will Johnson and Zach Rausch.

However, that Times message was balanced — on the same day — with this double-decker headline in the hard news pages:

Real Risk to Youth Mental Health Is ‘Addictive Use,’ Not Screen Time Alone, Study Finds

Researchers found children with highly addictive use of phones, video games or social media were two to three times as likely to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves.

OK, what is “addictive use”? Parse the mixed signals in the overture:

As Americans scramble to respond to rising rates of suicidal behavior among youth, many policymakers have locked in on an alarming metric: the number of hours a day that American children spend glued to a glowing screen.

But a study published … in the medical journal JAMA, which followed more than 4,000 children across the country, arrived at a surprising conclusion: Longer screen time at age 10 was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior four years later.

Instead, the authors found, the children at higher risk for suicidal behaviors were those who told researchers their use of technology had become “addictive” — that they had trouble putting it down, or felt the need to use it more and more. Some children exhibited addictive behavior even if their screen time was relatively low, they said.

The researchers found addictive behavior to be very common among children — especially in their use of mobile phones, where nearly half had high addictive use.

Did I read that right? While “nearly half” of the children in the study had “high addictive use,” the problem wasn’t that their parents handed them smartphones “at age 10” — it was that some children were addicted to them? The problem wasn’t the number of hours that these children were using their smartphones, it was the fact that they realized the devices were controlling their lives?

That’s the good news? Some children can use smartphones all day and be fine, while others have the same level of use and feel suicidal?

OK, I will ask: How are parents supposed to know, ahead of time, how their young children are going to react their smartphones? Do parents just roll the dice? I didn’t find this wisdom, from Yunyu Xiao Weill of Cornell Medical College, all that comforting:

Addictive behavior may be more difficult to control during childhood, before the prefrontal cortex, which acts as a brake on impulsivity, is fully developed.

Dr. Xiao said interventions should focus on the child’s addictive behavior, which is typically treated with cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, rather than simply limiting access to screens.

Got that? Here’s another mixed signal that I found rather troubling, in that same Times news feature:

Debates about screen time … tend to put the onus on parents to limit their children’s use of the platforms, a task that can be especially difficult for single-parent or lower-income families. …

“We are talking about something that’s just not feasible for some people who rely on that device to calm their kids down for a few minutes to give them a moment to fold the laundry and get dinner ready or go off to a second job,” [Xiao] said.

The new study found higher levels of addictive use of social media, video games and mobile phones among Black and Hispanic adolescents, and among youths from households with annual incomes below $75,000, unmarried parents and parents without a college education.

Once again, did I read that right? So, “higher levels of addictive use of social media, video games and mobile phones” are more common among these at-risk families, but it’s wrong to question the wisdom of those stressed-out parents using screen devices as babysitters?

The bottom line: It’s premature to issue “blanket warnings” about handing smartphones to children. Stressed-out parents simply need to learn how to spot signs of addictive behavior — other than massive amounts of screen time — so they can take their kids to “cognitive behavioral psychotherapy” sessions before there are hellish consequences in their lives?

That was the message in the news section, as in the Times pages that matter the most to journalists from sea to shining sea.

I kept waiting for quotes from experts willing to debate these conclusions. The story noted the existence of Haidt’s bestseller, “The Anxious Generation,” for the purpose of questioning its conclusions.

However, over in the op-ed pages, the After Babel team noted:

Parents who try to delay giving a smartphone until high school or social media until 16 know that they’ll face the plaintive cry from their children: “But I’m the only one!”

To better understand the tensions over technology playing out in American families, we worked with the Harris Poll to conduct two surveys. As we reported last year, our survey of 1,006 members of Gen Z found that many young people feel trapped — tethered to digital products like TikTok and Snapchat. Nearly half of all participants expressed regret about having access to many of the most popular social media platforms.

Here we present the second part of our investigation: a nationally representative survey of 1,013 parents who have children under 18. The overall picture isn’t any better. We find widespread feelings of entrapment and regret. Many parents gave their children smartphones and social media access early in their lives — yet many wish that social media had never been invented, and overwhelmingly they support new social norms and policies that would protect kids from online harms.

Once again, I know that some readers may ask: “What makes this Rational Sheep material?”

The key, for me, is the term “social norms.” There’s more to this painful puzzle than updated laws and policies targeting the principalities and powers that create these social-media platforms and the devices that carry them.

“Social norms” are, I would argue, related to the three questions that I use to define “discipleship” in the modern world. Those are: (1) How do you spend your time? (2) How do you spend your money? (3) How do you make your decisions?

For millions of people, these questions are linked to practical issues at home, at school, at work and at play.

What does faith have to do with that? Nothing, I guess, if you buy into what I call the “separation of church and life.” Please see this Rational Sheep post, built on material from my Haidt interview: “Digging deeper into spiritual issues in screens culture.”

I’ll end with a long passage from the Haidt, Johnson and Rausch op-ed in the Times. This is old material, by now. I know that.

Once again, I want to ask Rational Sheep readers to look for practical issues, in these digital “norms,” that are linked to the work of pastors, parents, teachers and counselors. The After Babel team said:

We have proposed four norms intended to help free families from the collective action trap — the feeling that they have to give in because everyone else has done so. It’s hard for any one parent or school to act alone. But when families and schools act together, change becomes possible. These norms are meant to reinforce one another, and when combined, they offer a road map for reclaiming a healthier and more joyful childhood.

The first norm is to delay smartphones until high school. Our survey found that two-thirds of parents said they would prefer to wait until at least age 14. The second is to delay social media until age 16 — a goal supported by 73 percent of parents, with 70 percent backing a legal age minimum of 16.

The third norm is phone-free schools, where students are separated from devices from the first bell to the last, including lunch and recess; 63 percent of parents support this policy. Finally, the fourth norm is about giving kids something better to do: more independence, free play and responsibility in the real world. Forty percent of parents with children aged 6 to 12 years said they want to give their kids more freedom to be out with peers unsupervised. Among parents of teenagers, that number rises to 47 percent.

Does anyone have theories about the New York Times take on all of this? Was I too harsh in my reading of that news piece?