Emily Cherkin provides disturbing examples of the “digitization” of children.
She talks of occupational therapists who teach toddlers how to turn pages of a book. She’s heard about elementary school children falling out of their chairs because they lacked the core strength to sit for long periods of time. She knows of a child who watched 13,000 YouTube videos on a school-issued laptop over three months when class was in session, a class of middle schoolers who imitate sex noises they hear online, and a teen who showers with his phone, stored in a Ziplock bag, because he can’t bear the brief separation.
“If children cannot pretend to fly, they cannot imagine, and therefore cannot innovate. Creativity means having an original thought,” said Cherkin, a screen time consultant who works with schools.
At the high school level, added Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist who specializes in adolescent brain development, educators are designing instruction around the digital tools, instead of vice versa. The English Language Arts section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, for example, was modified with questions containing fewer words and shorter sentences to resemble texts, not traditional literary passages.
Laptops shouldn’t be used to train novices to become experts, he said. Instead, all subject areas should be learned via “analog,” and then technology is applied “when you already know how to think.”
The ever-growing body of work proving the harms of excessive screen time, ubiquitous digital learning environments, and social media on children, cited by that panel of witnesses, will be referenced often in the months to come as federal and state lawmakers consider bills aimed at returning to traditional learning methods, protecting children’s safety and privacy, and restoring their ability to think in an era of artificial intelligence (AI).
“It’s an incredibly hard time to be a kid right now,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said during the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing, citing the increase in youth mental health problems and social media addiction. “More than half the time a teenager is awake, he or she is staring at a screen.”
Here’s a look at some of the legislation, policies, and public service messages suggested so far.
Repealing E-Rate:
Democrats oppose that proposal, saying E-Rate ensures everyone has Internet access regardless of income, and that the focus should remain on regulating the technology companies that create the products that addict children and steal their personal information.
“I’m hopeful that … these execs get hauled in here,” said Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.). “If they don’t want to show up, let’s use subpoena power.”
Kids Online Safety Act:
This bill was also introduced last year, and lawmakers hope it or similar legislation is signed into law this year. It would establish minimum user age limits and an age-verification system for social media platforms. The bill’s age limit is 13, though legislators and witnesses who testified on Jan. 15 would prefer to see the restriction set at 16 or even 18.
“It has been absolutely so frustrating that Big Tech has fought us every step of the way, on any of this legislation,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) the bill’s author. “There are laws in the physical world that prohibit you from endangering children in any way, shape, or form, but in the virtual space, it’s the wild west.”
Kids Off Social Media Act:
“I think most parents are powerless against these algorithms,” the bill’s co-author, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said, adding that parental controls offered by Big Tech companies instead of legislation are not a solution to the problem.
State Laws:
Many bills introduced last year could see action in the months to come. In New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed age verification on online gaming platforms, parental controls for children’s online financial transactions, and disabling AI chatbot features on social media platforms used by children.
Policy Suggestions and Public Service Messages:
There’s a strong push to keep teenagers off social media and delay buying them smartphones as long as possible, but youth peer pressure usually wins out. Cherkin said if one adult shows the courage to be “that first parent,” then others will follow.
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, said schools should exercise their authority to require parent permission slips for their child to use ed-tech tools at school that can access users’ personal information.
Jenny Radesky, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, challenges parents to share the disturbing news reports about social media or AI companions with their children and ask them what Big Tech could do better.
Jared Cooney Horvath, co-founder of Learning Made Easy and a neuroscientist, touted Australia’s government for implementing a social media ban for users under 16 and Scandinavian countries for returning to pen-and-paper-based classroom instruction after reviewing data that linked screen-based learning to poor academic performance.
“Whereas the rest of us look at data and say, ‘how can we make [ed tech] work better?” he said. “Man, I could ask you, how do we make anthrax work better? Maybe the answer is, you don’t. You go back to not using it.”
Gen X Connection:
Several senators noted how they and so many of their colleagues born between the late 1960s and early 1980s have school-age children. They related the matter at hand to Saturday morning cartoons and “Big Cereal’s” targeted ads decades ago but acknowledged that algorithms are far worse because they target individuals, not a collective.
“Your mom comes in and says, ‘You’re going to rot your brain,’” Schatz recalled of his childhood. “But they don’t actually mean you’re going to rot your brain in the same way that we mean it now.”
