Rescreening

The Kids (Who Use Tech) Seem to be All Right by Lydia Denworth
Scientific American, January 15, 2019

‍

Though most educators and parents accept as a given that adolescent use of technology is a net negative, even a terrible danger, the studies that undergird this belief turn out to be based on flawed, and alarmist, research. In this paradigm-shifting article in Scientific American, Lydia Denworth reports on a new paper out of Oxford University and published in Nature Human Behavior, which reveals that screen time has negligible effects on student well-being, as measured by rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Sleep, bullying, and drug use, for example, show substantially higher levels of effect on teen well-being. Certainly, excessive use of tech might affect these other aspects of children’s lives, but the study reveals that even two hours of screen-time each weekday, and longer on weekends, did not have a strong negative effect on teen psychological health. Some studies that sought to replicate the negative effects of screen time actually revealed a positive sense of connection and belonging. This article is a corrective to the prevailing “stickiness” of the dangers of screen time. Adults who work with teens might present this article alongside films like Screenagers and books like iGen by Jean Twenge as they seek to respond to the very real epidemic of adolescent anxiety and seek to create effective wellness programs in schools.