This article in The Sunday Times is a must read if you’re a parent or carer with teenagers or soon-to-be teenagers.
Here, one of the teenagers involved in the one-month experiment, reflects on their social media usage:
“It’s a trap,” Edie says. “You’re stuck, because if you do escape, you’re classed as a weirdo, and you’ll fall behind on trends, you won’t understand what people are talking about.” Rose jumps in, “But if you do watch TikTok, you’re going to get influenced. You know it’s all fake, but you still feel like it’s real. You still can’t help comparing yourself with everyone who looks pretty, and feeling bad about yourself. And you’re going to get addicted. It’s literally like a drug.”
The observations at the end of the month were informative:
Elliot noticed that Snapchat streaks are “completely pointless. They don’t do anything, do they?” Lincoln noticed that kids at his school had no idea how to have a meaningful conversation. “Their attention spans are too short.” Isaac noticed that the ten seconds it took to get up and find the TV remote, rather than get Netflix up on his phone, was long enough to remind him not to get distracted from his homework. Rowan noticed that 99 per cent of the chat on his WhatsApp groups was meaningless, and has muted most of them.
The blog post by Jonathan Haidt, whose book inspired the experiment, reflecting on the experiment, is worth reading too.
