As social media and artificial intelligence advance, it can be hard to know how to best help kids navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and keep them safe online.
Jen Doty, an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services at the University of Oregon, has studied cyberbullying since 2013 and has recently developed a program for middle school students to manage their social media and internet use. She joins us with her guide to conversations about internet use with school-aged kids.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. As social media and AI advance, it can be hard to know how to help kids navigate the ever-changing digital landscape, in ways that are safe and age appropriate. This is something Jen Doty has been thinking about for about a dozen years now. Doty is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services at the University of Oregon, and she joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.
Jen Doty: Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.
Miller: As I noted, you’ve been researching the kids’ internet use for about a decade now, more than that. How did you get into this work?
Doty: I was a mom of middle schoolers. I saw what they were going through with cyberbullying, online pressures and social comparisons, and I wanted to understand it more.
Miller: A lot has changed technologically since then, but I wonder how much you think has changed in terms of the issues at play here and the appropriate responses. Has a lot changed in 12 years?
Doty: Back at that time, the school teachers were encouraging our kids to bring their cell phones to class. We were very tech positive and very like, we can do so much with these cell phones – which is true. We now know that there’s some concerns about middle schoolers, in particular, having cell phones, and when they’re on digital media too much, what that can mean for them developmentally.
Miller: You said something on a recent U of O podcast that really surprised me, that researchers have not found a broad correlation between kids’ screen time and their mental health. It surprised me because I feel like it goes against the prevailing wisdom. How do you explain that?
Doty: When I’ve said that in a room full of parents, I have heard audible gasps. But what the research shows us is that there’s subgroups of kids who are at risk. We know that there’s about 10% to 20% of kids who excessively use digital media and social media, that they have problematic internet use where it gets in the way of their daily life. And those are the kids who are at risk of mental health problems and behavioral health problems. So I think it’s not all of the kids, it’s these subgroups of kids. And there’s some developmental pieces too. Early use, before 12, before 13, can put kids at risk too.
Miller: On average, which groups are more likely to be at higher risk from online life?
Doty: We know that there’s some developmental things going on. There was a huge study where there were more than 80,000 participants. They looked at kids over time. Girls from age 11 to 13 were likely to report lower satisfaction with life a year later, if they were on screens all the time. The same thing was true with boys ages 14 to 15.
And honestly, just a couple of weeks ago, we had a new study from – the ABCD Study [Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study], which is this huge study of more than 10,000 kids. They found that early use, a lot of early digital media use before age 12, was associated with obesity, with sleep problems. So, developmentally, maybe waiting a little bit longer, until age 14, some suggest 16, may be a safer bet for kiddos.
Miller: When you say waiting longer, waiting longer to let kids do what?
Doty: That is a great question. So, waiting later for them to have their own cell phones and to have that access to social media. I think it’s great and important for kids to be learning how to use the internet and look for information, supervised by their parents, at younger ages. Those are skills that they need to have. But when we give full access to middle schoolers to have unlimited access to digital media, that can become a problem pretty quickly.
Miller: What does the data show about just how much time kids are spending on screens on average these days?
Doty: There was a 2021 study where they found that kids between eight and 12 were spending more than five hours a day. That includes listening to music, but it excludes time online at school or doing homework. So that’s a lot of entertainment time for those preteens. And then among the adolescents, 13 to 18, they reported that they were online over eight hours a day.
Miller: Excluding screen time at work or doing actual schoolwork? Eight hours a day? That’s a lot. It’s like the day. It’s the whole day?
Doty: Yeah, right, right.
Miller: Eight hours a day?
Doty: That’s a lot.
Miller: It’s the day.
Doty: It’s almost all their free time. So that does include music and that’s important to students. And they say if you ask kids, teenagers, there’s a lot of positive things that they get out of screen time. They are creative, they’re learning things, they’re getting social support when they need it, they’re connecting with friends and family. But when it’s a lot of hours, when it’s excessive and it’s getting in the way of their daily activities, like if you see their grades dropping or they’re not connecting with friends anymore, those are warning signs.
Miller: I feel like it’s important, after expressing my surprise at the eight hours a day that adolescent kids are spending on screens, how different is that from what adults are doing? I know that there’s a serious difference in terms of maturity and developing brains, and we, as a society, are more worried in general about what kids are doing than what adults are doing. But how different are our kid’s and adult’s time spent on screens?
Doty: I don’t have offhand statistics on adult use, but what I will say is that my colleague Nick Allen just did a research study where it wasn’t self-report, they were actually scraping the data from adults aged 18 and above. They did not find any association between the time that they spent online, what they were doing online, and their mental health outcome. So, I think that there’s some risk in early adolescence and younger kids that may not be there for adults.
Miller: You mentioned that when you started, there was this idea that this technology is great and we should encourage kids to be on screens in schools. Obviously, there’s been a sea change societally, globally in recent years about that. And Oregon is now one of many schools … This is a bipartisan issue and one of the few ones in our country where red and blue states have banned cell phones in schools, and Oregon has recently become one of them. Is there data now, good data about the effects of these bans?
Doty: Yeah, it’s interesting that you should ask that. We are doing a research project right now where we’ve looked at the effects of cell phone bans. And what I will say is that there may be some academic benefits, but the research is early on and emerging. So far, we don’t have good evidence that it’s helping with mental health problems. But that’s not because we know that it will or won’t. It’s because it just hasn’t been studied enough to really know the answer to that quite yet.
Miller: Can you tell us about a program you’re piloting in Portland schools for students who are struggling with problematic internet use?
Doty: For kids who may have been involved in cyberbullying or who may have this problematic internet use where they’re constantly online, or maybe they’re not getting enough sleep, we are inviting them into our tech checkup program. We have a facilitator, who’s a college student, sit down with them and get them to think about their online use.
We teach them an acronym: [TECH.] T stands for think about your internet use, the algorithms that you’re being fed. E, educate yourself about the risks. The C is connect in person in the digital world. And the last one is [H,] harness healthy habits. We invite them to make goals and think about what they want to change. We’ve had several students go through this in our pilot. They know they have a problem. And they’re very enthusiastic about the changes that they’re able to make when they sit down and get some support around making some goals and reducing their problematic internet use.
Miller: How do you define problematic internet use?
Doty: There’s some good screeners out there. One that I use, from the American Psychological Association, has five points. So, parents, if you’re listening, here are a few points that you can ask yourself and they’re red flags that mean that you may need some help for your teen ...
If they are wanting to get offline, but they feel compelled to continue using the internet, that might be a problem. If they’re engaging in excessive efforts to try to get online when they’re not supposed to be – for example, they’re sneaking out of class to go to the bathroom and use their phone, or they’re getting up at night and using the family computer in the office because they don’t have their phone – that could be a problem sign. If they’re craving digital media when they’re away from it, like they can’t concentrate in school because they’re thinking about their next social media post, or if they’re spending more time than they meant to spend – 20 minutes, and before they know it, two hours have gone by. If they’re losing relationships with family and friends due to their digital media use.
Those are all warning signs that maybe your child needs to talk to their pediatrician or a school counselor to get some resources and some help.
Miller: You said earlier that you do recommend that parents delay, for as long as they can, especially for sort of important developmental ages, having kids have their own devices and having unfettered access to those devices. What’s your advice for actually how to do that in practice?
Doty: I don’t really like to make a judgment call on when is the best time for any particular family to have cell phones in their home. I know there’s some families where their kids need cell phones in order to use an app to get to and from school on a bus. So I think every kid has a different maturity level and I encourage families to wait until 14 or 16, if they can.
But if that’s not possible, one thing that we’ve been recommending is to look up the website, First Phone Pact, and really talk before you get that phone about what your guidelines are and your expectations, and have an agreement between parent and child, so that you can avoid some of the fights that may come around that later on down the road. So I definitely encourage upfront conversations about expectations and boundaries with that first phone.
Miller: Often, the argument that kids will make – and one that that a lot of parents find hard to argue with, especially if they’ve dealt with feeling ostracized or like outsiders when they were kids themselves – is everybody else has this and if I don’t have a particular phone or the particular apps, if I’m not on the particular networks that are popular in the moment, then I’ll be left behind or left out. How do you reckon with that?
Doty: Yeah, those are reasonable concerns. There’s some emerging evidence that kids who are the only ones without a phone in a particular social circle will feel some social deficits. So, if parents can think about this ahead of time as a community and decide that we’re all gonna wait until eighth [grade], that will alleviate that pressure for just a few middle school students or a few students, whatever age they’re at. That’s one idea. And the other is to encourage as many phone-free spaces when kids are socializing together as possible. So we’re inviting people over for pizza and a movie, and everyone’s phone goes into a basket. Those are some strategies that parents might try.
Miller: What advice do you have for adults themselves in terms of modeling their own behavior when it comes to screens?
Doty: This is an important one and one, in some of our interviews with young people, that they talk about. Parents themselves talk about this in our interviews as well, that it’s really hard to tell kids to be offline and pay attention to the humans in front of you when parents themselves aren’t doing that. Teens have expressed frustration to our research group about when they try to approach a parent and they don’t get eye contact or attention, because the parents are looking down at the phone. And that does model a behavior of a pattern of disconnection.
Miller: I’m reminded of the sort of classic war on drugs era ad where a dad is sort of confronting his kid and the kid’s like, “well, I learned it by watching you.” I mean, they’re learning it by watching us all the time.
Doty: Yeah. And I think more broadly, how we react to things on social media and the way that we are currently managing our own emotions in this highly charged political environment, that models to kids emotional regulation, or sometimes the lack of it. That’s also driving a lot of patterns in our society right now. So sometimes, as adults, we need to know when to turn it off and be present.
Miller: Do you have any advice for folks who, right now, are looking at holiday wish lists from kids, and some of those lists have tablets or cell phones on them, or just various connected devices?
Doty: Let me talk even a little bit younger. Some of the robotics and things have incorporated AI. And I would definitely encourage parents to really avoid AI products if they can at young ages. Some of the reasons for that is that they are designed to get users to stay on indefinitely a lot of times. And, if possible, we want to encourage play with other humans.
And then, in terms of gift giving, a lot of times folks do think about giving a first phone to young people. Again, I don’t wanna make a judgment call if someone does decide that a 12- or 13-year-old is going to get a phone. I would definitely recommend having some kind of a pact, some kind of an expectation around that. And that website, First Phone Pact, is a good starting place. And if possible, we do recommend waiting for those smartphones until age 14 or 16. The more of us that can do that, I think the healthier those early adolescents will be.
Miller: And just briefly, Australia has now instituted a nationwide ban on social media for anyone under the age of 16. Would you support a law like that here?
Doty: That’s a great question. I think I would be hesitant because the evidence is that only 10% to 20% of kids are really having problems with cell phones. So, on average, most kids are finding a lot of, again, connection, creativity, learning opportunities, social support. And we know from anecdotal reports in Australia that there’s a lot of kids who are just getting around that rule by lying about their age.
Miller: So it may not work anyway?
Doty: Yeah, I think taking a reasonable and balanced approach. I definitely think that there’s some early evidence that cell phone bans in schools is a good thing. But I think all of these kids are going to be using technology in adulthood and they need some room to be able to learn how to use that in a healthy way.
I think about this like a driver’s license situation. We give kids the ability to get a license at age 16. But before that, they’re given training. And they’re given some time to practice, in a supervised, monitored way, so that when they do go use that technology of a car, they know how to use it and use it well. And I would support a model that’s a bit more like that, where there’s some training and some supervised time to learn how to do this in a good way.
Miller: Jen Doty, thanks very much.
Doty: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Miller: Jen Doty is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services at the University of Oregon.
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