Are our kids addicted to spending time with friends?
Issue #24
First, a note to my readers. To ensure that I'm able to consistently produce quality content, I am going to change the cadence of this newsletter to every two weeks. Between running my company and raising two kids, I am finding myself close to the line of not being able to dedicate proper time to this publication. Look forward to filling your inbox every two weeks with the latest and greatest in digital parenting!
Now, onto our regularly scheduled programming.
Earlier this month, I learned something funny: 69% of us could be considered "addicted" to our friends offline. The stat and accompanying study were shared on Twitter by Dr. Linda K. Kaye, who studies the psychology of gaming and online behavior. And, while it was all intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the statistic was intended to get us thinking about the headlines we regularly see about social media addiction. What Dr. Kaye and the rest of the authors were doing was showing us how those social media addiction studies actually work—and exposing the inherent flaws by applying the methodology to our behavior offline.
In an accompanying video, the authors explain how social media addiction is studied: people fill out questionnaires that are usually used to diagnose substance addiction. "According to some researches, up to 34% of people can be considered to be "addicted" to social media," the video explains. But, most social media addiction scales are developed by changing the wording of substance addiction scales—i.e. alcohol cravings, etc. Questions include things like "I spend a lot of time thinking about spending time on social media." This got the researchers thinking: maybe we're just addicted to our friends. So instead of asking people if they spent a lot of time thinking about spending time on social media, they asked people if they spent a lot of time thinking about spending time with their friends. They asked respondents to agree or disagree with statements like "I lose track of how much time I spend with my friends," and "I become irritable if I am unable to spend time with my friends." And that's how they showed that nearly 7 in 10 people are addicted to their offline friends.
Obviously, the researchers don't seriously believe that offline friend addiction is a real concern; they undertook this study to expose the flaws in diagnosing people with social media addiction. I've written before about how the word "addiction" is problematic when it comes to describing our relationship with technology. This language is particularly damaging when it comes to the narrative of screen time for kids. Academics like Jean Twenge have loudly proclaimed that social media is worse than heroin. All of this rhetoric is truly damaging for parents. It causes us an outsized amount of anxiety—and the studies that underpin tech addiction are often problematic. They rely on self-reporting and small sample sizes. And then, the word addiction is thrown around quite liberally.
I intentionally stay away from the word addiction for precisely these reasons. I think it sensationalizes the issue and that makes it much harder for parents and kids to develop a truly healthy, productive relationship with technology. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend some time with my family—who I haven't been able to stop thinking about all day. Just don't call it an addiction.
A deeper dive
Here are a few helpful resources in case you want to really dig into today's topic:
If you're interested in seeing the research behind "offline friend addiction," check out the full study here. My favorite part of the abstract: "...measures of ‘social media addiction’ focus on motivations for online social information seeking, which could relate to motivations for offline social information seeking. However, it could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly cited pathological social media use scales to reflect “spending time with friends."
And if you're short on time, check out the video for a quick summary of their approach!
TL;DR
Too long; didn't read. It shouldn't be a full-time job to keep up on industry news, so here is a mercifully quick summary of some other notable developments:
Some TikTok trends are silly, like families doing a slide dance together. Others are deeply troubling like parents violently bullying their children. Recent videos showcase parents smashing laptops, busting TV screens and swearing while their kids look on in horror—all for the purposes of "going viral." While these videos are apparently "staged," they're still deeply disturbing and problematic. Some parents who have posted them have even been reported to child protection services. Ultimately, these videos have the potential to normalize and even inspire similar behavior, and if you ask me, no amount "virality" is worth that trade off.
Bark founder Brian Bason wrote an opinion piece recently for Business Insider where he shares some startling statistics about the real dangers children face online. While Big Tech is proposing solutions like Instagram for Kids, Bason and I share the belief that children are going to be largely uninterested in kids' versions of larger platforms. I agree wholeheartedly with his conclusion that "[u]ltimately the solution is not to demand more "parental controls" from tech companies who aren't incentivized to provide them in the first place. It is time for them to empower us to fully protect our children."
And lastly
Here are a few more pieces of original writing from me and my team—just in case you're keen for more:
I've been saying it for a long time: parents need more reasonable advice about screen time that doesn't sensationalize the issue with words like "addiction." Here's an article I wrote explaining why comparing social media to heroin (or potatoes, for that matter) is supremely unhelpful for parents.
Since it can be tricky to socialize in person these days, lots of kids are spending time connecting with family and friends via screens rather than IRL. If you're concerned about how the shift online is affecting kids' development, here are some tips from my team for cultivating empathy through digital interaction.
Okay, that's it from me until next time. If you enjoyed this newsletter, and know of another parent who would as well, please feel free to forward it along.