Yes, publication week sees a bumper release of REBOOT podcasts! We have reached the midpoint of this series - here’s the fifth of ten special podcasts corresponding to the chapters in Reboot: Reclaiming Your Life in a Tech-Obsessed World.
As you’re discovering if you’re a regular listener, this is a journey through the whole of the life span and our relationships with and through technology. You may be developing some new vocabulary: cyborg fetuses, babyveillance and infant wearables, domestic and commercial sharenting, and social scoring at school.
No, to adolescents! Perhaps the life stage that worries us the most when it comes to technology is teenagers.
The question of Instagram’s impact on the well-being of teenage girls loomed large in ‘The Facebook Files’, the Wall Street Journal’s investigative report based on documents leaked by Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower who testified before congress in the US. We’re always worried about what’s happening online and whether it will damage kids at a tender time, developmentally speaking. Concern about teenagers mental health has driven China to introduce legislation to regulate screen time, allowing 16-18 year olds two hours per day.
So we worry a lot about the impact on screens on teens, but have we got the science to back it up?
I spoke about Amy Orben’s research in REBOOT – she and Professor Andrew Przybylski did a large piece of research on that very topic, with some surprising results. Professor Przybylski also recently published some research with Matti Vuorre about Facebook and well-being. What all these pieces of research have in common is the Oxford Internet Institute, and my guest today is also associated with the OII.
Today, I’m chatting with Karen Mansfield, a Postdoctoral Researcher working on a research programme about ‘Adolescent Well-Being in the Digital Age’ also with Professor Andrew Przybylski. That project is investigating how the internet, social media platforms, and video games influence the mental health and psychosocial functioning of young people. Along with a lot of other researchers at the OII, she’s trying to build up a stronger research base to better inform health policy and tech regulation, because at the moment, those things are sometimes based more on emotion and on bad science than on reliable research findings.
Stay tuned — next week I’ll be posting the episode on Young Adulthood, looking at adult attachment styles and the (sometimes unfortunate) interface with technology use.
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