To agree with Esther Ghey?

[ProfessorPeppy]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/12/i-want-to-make-things-better-esther-ghey-on-her-hopes-for-online-reform

I’m a teacher in a secondary school. I believe that the massive uptick in social problems we are experiencing in schools results from unfettered smartphone use and access to social media. School refusal, eating disorders, gender identity issues, self harm, anxiety, depression. ASD/ADHD seems to be a common underlying starting point for such vulnerabilities, but neurotypical children are also adversely affected. So many of the children I teach say things like, ‘everybody is looking at me in class, it makes me anxious’ - surely this results from a life spent on social media? Cameras on phones mean that anybody can be recorded/broadcast themselves at the click of a button, perhaps without their permission.

DS1 is 11 and about to start secondary school. He doesn’t have a phone…yet. He has an ASD/ADHD dual diagnosis and is medicated. I can clearly see that he might be vulnerable to the adverse effects of smartphone access, so I’m thinking v carefully about my next steps.

YABU: these problems have always existed for young people, and this has nothing to do with smartphones/social media.

YANBU: smartphones/social media have amplified these problems, especially for ND young people.

@User14March I agree with this. At primary school age my dd went to loads of different activities - dance, gymnastics, rainbows/brownies. She was busy and tired at night.
But all the structured activities fall off in secondary - dd got too self conscious to go to gymnastics anymore and the way girls behave towards each other meant she felt uncomfortable doing team sports with them. Tech and online activities filled the gap.
I don't know what we as a society can do though - teenagers seem to become completely different kids to when they were little.

Dd1 doing A levels and has entirely off her own bat downloaded an app that blocks her phone and records her revision time. Slightly breaks my heart that teens are forced to police and essentially save themselves from these addictive devices society endorses.

The thing is you can’t force teens to do things, they need to want to do these things and so many cost £££ which families don’t have now anyway. An awful lot can of socialising now is done in their own bedroom on their phones. Teens with ASC often have solitary special interests and find social situations incredibly hard hence turning to socialising behind screens more.

@LadyBird1973 in my day there wasn’t so much of a shift, we were far more social as teens. We all went to the pub at Christmas at 16, etc, too & youth clubs, swimming, movies, squash, pool.

It's absolutely rife here too. My Dd was 'outed' by her ASD support teacher who is obsessed with Trans rights. Teacher phoned me at home out of blue & used Dds 'new name & sex' / waffled on about changing register & exam titles. After a while Dd 'didn't qualify' for more support & was totally content with her bio sex again. She's just been re-referred (exam anxiety). I'm bloody dreading it starting up again.

@T00manymugs I think we’ve become too indulgent. Those with ASC etc, unless very severe, had to find skills and toolkit to cope & close friends would support.

It was a very humane article. Just awful to read of all the various pressures that her child experienced online, and then to think about the online influences that may have shaped the minds and behaviours of the children who murdered her. What a horrible mess we are in.

You can’t switch autism off and today’s environment is hugely difficult for those of us with autism. Many will have ADHD too. Many won’t have close friends and will be struggling with masking, anxiety, sensory issues etc. A slower more mindful less tech orientated environment is do much better for autism and developing brains. I have a pre tech adolescence and years of work on myself to fall back on. Today’s teens ASC or otherwise don’t.

I really agree with this. Everyone keeps saying kids should be out more, but not everyone just wants to hang out randomly with strangers on street corners or kicking a ball - the quieter ones aren't going to muscle in on what they see others are doing - they're going to continue to be lonely and introverted etc.

They need organised activities, where they just get swept up into doing things the others are doing. We need a better range of clubs & societies, a bit like what they do at Unis, but at a far younger age. Get them working in association with schools, to try and break down the obstacles to the quieter kids doing other things.

We have to be realistic about the internet. We can't turn it off and can't really control it, so the next best thing we can do is occupy our children with other activities so that the default isn't always going on social media when they're "bored".

It only takes 10 minutes to be abused and groomed on line. Apps which feed anorexia are portable and addictive. You can’t fill every minute with expensive activities nobody has the money for. This needs proper sorting from those who are supposed to be governing. They are not safeguarding teens or children.

I agree with the above - we need to bring back youth clubs. It would cost a bit to get them up and running but in the end if we want our children to be off their devices, we need to give them something to do.

@TOOmanymugs yes autism/ADHD make today’s environment very challenging but depending on your locale & personal situation also pretty hard to navigate pre tech. We were encouraged to ‘just get on with it’ with support.

I know that’s over simplifying but leaving an ADD teen etc to ruminate for hours and hovering outside their room on eggshells not the way. Generally our curtains were opened & we had to be up & out.

OP, I 100% agree with you and the secondary teachers I know agree with you too. Social media is a toxic hellhole for most teenagers and I could weep for them 😢

I think the problems were brought to us by media, I think that to an extent 90s children had many of the same issues, however the Internet has exacerbated so many of the issues our teens are struggling with.

I would like to see many parents actually parent their teens though.
Unfettered access to social media, and not ever having their phones checked seems like an incredibly bad idea. I started to give DD a little more freedom with her phone when she reached 14, that freedom didn't last long because like many of her peers, she couldn't use the Internet responsibly or safely without guidance.

I wish that a lot of parents also ensured their kids weren't stuck to their phones all the time too, because social media is inescapable for many, and many of those children are being bullied on it.

No we didn’t. I wasn’t. I was allowed to indulge my special interests which didn’t involve tech and were far more mindful. I didn’t have hoards of friends just one or two and didn’t live in a city. Rarely saw friends outside of teenage years and like many had landline usage limited. Bar Guides which I hated there was nothing to do. I found school incredibly hard and masked hugely. It had a massive impact on my life. Expecting autistic teens to just get on with it is not the way to go and doing sfa about what all teens are having to contend with now isn’t the way to go either. Unless that is you want more and more of a drain on services and the nhs.

All of this

I agree. I had no idea about Brianna's background and how troubled she was. I'd only seen headlines before and not read the articles, now I completely understand where she is coming from. A therapist told me 20 years ago that the world is evolving faster than the evolution of our brains and I think about that a lot. It explains why everyone is so stressed, anxious, angry.

I don't understand why more people don't bother with parental controls. It really isn't that difficult and an easy way of at least restricting open access to the internet. They can even be set up at network level so all internet traffic i your home is affected.

Yes some savvy kids may work out ways to bypass, and there isn't much you can do about their access elsewhere but it's a good start and should be part of basic parental responsibility. It worries me that so many seem to be oblivious to it.

Mainstream schools need to get out from under the yoke of Ofsted and league tables, and remember they’re teaching young individuals.

Parents need to put their own phones down and engage with their children.

Companies need to stop enslaving their workers so that they can be around more for their families while they’re at home.

Social media companies need to take some responsibility, and governments need to step up and regulate what young people have access to online.

Technology was meant to set us free, but it’s done the direct opposite.

This.

Some parents need to stop giving into peer pressure don’t let your child get the app, don’t get them a smart phone. Learn how they work and monitor your children’s usage.

Make the effort, protect your kids, this includes the computer etc. media in all forms.

the girl who killed Brianna was watching snuff and torture rooms from the age of 13 in the same house as her parents.

Are parents willing to ban their children from having smartphones? Or willing to go through their child’s phone to check SM accounts?

What are you checking on SM? They have multiple accounts, burner phones, can delete, hide, exchange ways to be one step ahead of parents and live streaming sites are just as dangerous if not more. Do you know all the dangerous sites, games , apps etc. they change continuously. They need smart phones for all sorts of things.

It isn’t that easy.

I work with year 6 children. Every single morning, they come into school with their phones showing screen shots of their ‘friends’ being horrible to them the previous evening. Parents do not supervise or monitor their phones.

There’s not a lot we can do. Obviously we sympathise but remind them that whatever they put on social media is for all to see and do with as they feel fit.

Something has to change and I think Esther Ghey has a point.

Great post! Brilliant summary!

And the worst thing is young people are just handing over the most rich and in-depth data to China everyday by using TikTok, to the extent that China knows precisely what makes Western populations fearful, buy more, engage, become angry, reject democracy, mistrust institutions and so on, and will be able to create something to perfectly manipulate whole populations very shortly.

At the school I work in, phones are banned. We do use the internet apps for homework but they are all accessible from an iPad or laptop, which is what they’re required to have for use in class. Timetables are emailed, but it’s hardly rocket science to have it printed or written out on paper. They can even print it out at school themselves. School lunches are paid for using an ID card which they are issued.

Schools that are making kids use phones all the time need to look at this very carefully, because it’s not necessary. Transport companies using apps will also need to rethink, in my opinion, and recognise that essentially requiring young teens to have a phone is not right.