Calling Bullshit on Social Media Bans

A few years ago, I (Will Dobud) read Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West’s 2021 book, Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World.

Competent enough with research statistics, the book broadened my ability to see where researchers—seemingly with good intentions—can get lost amongst large sums of data.

Finding misleading presentations of quantitative data was nothing new to me in my career as a psychotherapy researcher. In early 2024, Nevin and I published a large wilderness therapy study including more than 6,000 youth outcomes to show how 20 years of research had overshadowed harm and trauma by routinely focusing on asking simple research questions. Reading Calling Bullshit, however, provided me another perspective for spotting it all from afar. A refreshing memorial to my undergraduate studies in the social sciences – where we were introduced to critically examining the so-called science.

I found myself grateful for the reminder to think critically about current events and recent writing projects.

Sensationalizing Youth

Nevin (your host of Adults in the Room) and I started the manuscript for Kids These Days a few years ago. As we prepared our work and relinquished our writing to the publishers, new books on similar topics hit the bookshelves.

First, we saw Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier. A good read. The journalist did not hold back her punches. To us, it didn’t capture the fully zoomed-out view of what’s going on with “kids these days,” but it was still important.

Then came the big one: The Anxious Generation. While I truly enjoyed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s previous books, the crusade on social media and cell phones never sat comfortably with me. Haidt’s central thesis was that these pocket-sized computers intended to bring the world closer – obviously failing at that mission – were “causing an epidemic of mental illness.”

The Anxious Generation was released in the United States on March 26, 2024. By late November, the Australian government announced a ban on social media use for children under the age of 16, which would be implemented the following year. Considering how slowly most federal governments work to get things done, this was a pretty fast spread. Having worked across Australia and the United States since 2009 and collaborated as an external research consultant with the Australian federal government’s Australian Institute of Family Studies, I had questions.

Youth mental health is a wicked problem. No doubt. Self-harm and rates of suicide are tragic. In the first chapter of Kids These Days, Nevin asked why adolescents who should be ready to take on the world would instead turn their world off. It’s heartbreaking, and by no means does this discussion intend to minimize the impact of social media. There is an aspect of this movement that doesn’t add up.

Should we be reacting this quickly to a sensationalized book less than a year since its pressing?

Yes, it feels right to give children phone-free time in schools and resist the indoctrination of social media and all its potential harm. As a career outdoor therapist, I like seeing young people spend time outdoors, so we are aligned on that.

Between the 300+ pages and dozens of graphs in Haidt’s new book, I started to hear the words of Bergstrom and West in my ear: “Call bullshit.”

Wildfires of Bullshit

Before unpacking how bullshit spreads, we need to define it. Here is the definition Bergstrom and West provided on Page 40:

“Bullshit involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to persuade or impress an audience by distracting, overwhelming, or intimidating them with a blatant disregard for truth, logical coherence, or what information is actually being conveyed.”

The central problem, especially in today’s social media landscape, is that bullshit spreads faster than we have time to react to. Back to Bergstrom and West:

“Bullshit spreads more easily in a massively networked, click-driven social media world than in any previous social environment. We have to be alert for bullshit in everything we read.”

The four norms Haidt proposed went viral across social media. Toy milk cartons suggesting childhood was now missing were placed on the Capital Mall between Abraham Lincoln’s memorial and the reflection pool in my hometown of Washington, D.C. Haidt frequented my favorite podcasts and television programs, describing how his interpretation of the research provides enough evidence for how front-facing cameras and like buttons “caused” an epidemic of mental illness.

If we believe the hypothesis of causation, where the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. The claim suggests that one event (the youth mental health crisis) is the direct result of another event (social media and cellular telephones). The claim is plausible, but abrupt responses to such claims often lead to simple solutions. These solutions may look good on paper, but the unintended consequences may be discounted or veiled amongst the bullshit.

Responsibility, What’s That?

“We want our kids to have a childhood and parents to know we have their backs,” said the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when discussing the recent federal government legislation banning social media use for youth.

On the surface, banning social media until age 16 seems sensible. Phone-free schools? It just feels right. After all, the legal age of consent in Australia is 16-17.

That said, the age of criminal responsibility in every state and self-governing territory of Australia, except the Australian Capital Territory, is 10. Ten years old. Legally speaking, a 10-year-old is considered mature, informed, and responsible enough to understand the distinction between right and wrong. They can’t, however, navigate social media until they are 16.

I noticed this cognitive dissonance right away. The goalposts for consent, responsibility, and autonomy are all over the place for youth during the time when their brain undergoes the second most epic transition ever while they form a secure identity of who they are.

Additionally, the argument for removing the phones seems to be argued by many who claim the youth of today are fragile, coddled, overprotected, and mentally ill.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance occurs when one simultaneously holds two opposing thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes.

A simple example of cognitive dissonance is a somewhat common experience of people participating in cults. One of my close colleagues researches people’s experiences in cults, so this was an easy example for me. Imagine a cult leader predicting the end of the world, yet when the day comes and goes, the guru’s followers believe in their leader more than ever. People are stuck with either ditching the dissonance or holding on more than ever. Dropping our beliefs is really hard, and of course, many other everyday examples can be used without judgment.

Someone calls themselves an animal lover and eats meat. We want to be healthy but aren’t eating well. One person might know the dangers of smoking, but they continue to smoke. A parent may say, “I want my children to express themselves,” while maintaining, “I don’t want my children to speak unless spoken to.”

During a recent lecture, a student raised the issue of upcoming social media bans. The student, employed in an alternative school for high-risk students, reported the youth are feeling pretty confused.

By mid-2020, Australia took the initiative to become one of the most locked-down countries in the world. High schools quickly adapted education to online portals. Educators spent their days in Zoom classrooms, and students quickly adapted from an education already somewhat centered on the World Wide Web and smartphones to make i-tech 100% of their learning.

“Your life is online.” This was the messaging to young people as we adjusted to COVID-19 mitigation strategies. I remember my two teenagers (17 and 15 at the time) battling for my home office for a quiet workplace to Zoom and study while my partner and I worked together on the dining room table. The investment in getting everything online was paramount.

But now, we’ve taken it away. During the lecture, the student reported that the young people she works with had many questions. They wanted to know the why.

The dissonance here is the benefits of integrating i-tech into everyday life. The problem is digital interference when the wonderful aspects of technology begin to interfere with positive youth development and our brain’s functioning. And yes, it’s a big problem.

Digital Integration or Digital Interference

While writing Kids These Days, Nevin and I knew we needed to talk about social media and the phones. Nevin reached out to neurotherapist Dr. Mari Swingle, who authored a foundational book (i-Minds) focused on how i-media impacts our brains.

Thoroughly unpacking the addictive qualities intentionally programmed into social media apps, such as the infinite scroll, Mari introduces an easy-to-understand central thesis. Mari argued that Digital Integration is possible and favourable, yet Digital Interference remains a problem. She showed “how some of us have most healthy relationships with people and technologies alike, while others suffer rather extreme fallout from over consumption or other misapplications to, or maladaptations from i-tech.”

Digital integration was the goal during the COVID-19 pandemic – not without faults or backfires. Technology was integrated into all forms of learning. Educators were learning on the job. Policy writers did the same, and students quickly made it work for the most part.

When new bell-to-bell guidelines roll out, educators must learn on the job again. If we maintain that, yes, we are experiencing “the anxious generation,” we are asking educators to navigate educating the anxious youth without the crutch that apparently rewired childhood and caused an epidemic of mental illness.

Teaching is one of the most important jobs. We all had teachers. So did brain surgeons and the rocket scientists. We’re asking a lot of the professionals who experienced their classrooms rewired to Zoom waiting rooms and their students into square boxes with muted cameras.

To me, this argument is sensationalism at its best.

Having Skin in the Game

Nevin and I are social scientists. Rigorous social science is grounded in a theoretical understanding of our social world, and our social world includes culture, morals, ethics, love, grief, care, and religion/spirituality. These things are inherently hard to count. As Nevin wrote about the mental health industrial complex in a previous Substack post, the person or systems that maintain the power of how to count lived experiences and categorize our social world wields substantial power.

In a country where youth are criminally responsible from age 10 but powerless to integrate social media into their lives, this seems contradictory. I worry when ideas like this quickly become treated as natural law (i.e., some sort of objective truth) and abruptly inform social policy.

I’m not discounting the concern about social media. Who is going to do the policing? The tech companies will verify the age of 16-year-olds. How? Will youth have to upload their driver’s licenses? What about verification for online pornography like generations before were required to pick up the magazine from the gas station? It feels right, right? But, what will tech companies do with these minors’ identifying information? Will they sell this information to corporations targeting advertisements to youth?

Who will support educators in policing the phone-free classroom? Will students with disability accommodations be allowed to use a phone to take pictures of PowerPoint slides, use text-to-voice applications, or record lectures?

It’s not the problem that social media hasn’t changed childhood and all of our lives. It’s simple solutions that concern me. Yes, a classroom without cellular distractions would be nice.

There is so much more to this story than social media. After all, youth anxiety has been increasing at a worrying rate since the 1950s, the days of the rotary phones and an operator. A quick search found “youth mental health crisis) used as far back as the early 2000s.

I call a little bit of bullshit on this one. I fear the regrettable substitutions that often stem from quick-fix approaches and universal mandates when those making the decisions have little skin in the game.

Just because it feels right, doesn’t mean it is right.

This is the “kids these days” effect. We need to be the adults in the room…whether phones are present or not.

Thanks for reading, Will W. Dobud, PhD