April 29, 2024

Smartphone Bans for Kids and a Proposed Ban on Giving Patrick Mahomes Additional Weapons

We’ve all seen it. Even if you aren’t a parent, the dreaded smartphone hunch is everywhere. Adults are not exempt, but it’s sadder in kids. And while the hunch is certainly something society as a whole has taken notice of, schools experimenting with smartphone bans is another.

Norway is the latest country to test out a school-wide smartphone ban. Based on middle schools that had banned (light bans to live with the wolves you go if I see another smartphone on these premises) smartphones, researchers sought out data on how banning smartphones impacted student mental health, bullying, educational performance, and their likelihood of attending an academic track in high school.

And the results were …

• A significant decline at the intensive margin for the number of consultations related to diagnosis and treatment for psychological symptoms and diseases;
• A reduction in girls’ need for care related to mental health issues;
• Girls’ educational performance improves as their GPA increases by 0.08;
• Post-ban girls’ externally graded exams in mathematics improved by 0.22 standard deviations;
• Girls were 4 - 7 percentage points more likely to attend an academic high school track post-ban, suggesting that banning smartphones leads to an improvement in girls’ mid-term educational outcomes.
• Bullying decreases by 0.42 and 0.39 of a standard deviation for girls and boys, respectively, when they are exposed full-time in middle school.

Overall, the effect wasn’t as pronounced on boys aside from less bullying when no phones are in play. A study worth bookmarking as more and more districts worldwide are considering a ban.

Another fascinating fellow on this subject is Jonathan Haidt, who just wrote “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”

Haidt’s premise - the spike in teenage anxiety and depression is correlated with the rise in smartphones and social media.

Haidt’s solution - No smartphones before high school and no social media before age sixteen.

For all of you with kids with smartphones and social media below the age of 16 (alas, me included …. F&%#)

Haidt provides some interesting nuggets to chew on:

• Dial-up Internet arrived first with millennials, and while the connection with the world was powerful, it was still dial-up.
  • Most indicators of teen mental health were either steady or improving in the late 90s.
• In 2012, mental health indicators plummeted. But not only Stateside - in Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and Australia.
  • The proposed culprit - the smartphone - a front-facing camera, Instagram, and high-speed data.

Why is this affecting girls differently than boys?

Haidt suggests that boys, in general, gravitate towards “coalitional violence.” These could be video games at a multiplayer level. Boys are also on YouTube and users of social media like Instagram, but not nearly at the rates of girls.

Girls spend a lot more time on social media, and interactions are asynchronous. They spend hours crafting posts or pictures and then wait for comments. It is brand management to some extent, and the downsides are particularly destructive.

Not all kids are alike, but we are in uncharted territory. For those over 40, when we were young, the “too much TV warning” was constant, but at least we watched it together.

This Isn’t Fair

Patrick Mahomes is slowly moving towards Greatest of All Time (GOAT) status. The NFL quarterback is a wizard and despite having lost one of his most potent weapons the previous year, the Chiefs still won the Super Bowl this year.

Yet, for anyone who enjoys at least a smidgen of parity, the Chief's draft of Xavier Worthy is plain absurd …