Deep in Impacts of digital media use on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing: evidence review published today:

The review has identified important methodological limitations, particularly regarding causality and the direction of associations between digital media use and mental health and wellbeing.

Yet in the same paragraph, this:

Whilst these limitations warrant consideration, the literature suggests that there may be a role for policy interventions to reduce potential harms and support positive digital experiences among children and young people. https://www.gov.scot/publications/impacts-digital-media-use-children-young-peoples-mental-health-wellbeing-evidence-review/

For more than 50 years now, I’ve been interested in, taught about and researched media effects and found damn few. The media carpet-bombing in Scotland of the SNP has reduced support for them. It has also maintained support for the Union by saturated anxiety-inducing news at a level demonstrably higher than in the other parts of the UK with consequent fear of change and resultant conservatism in voting.

Violence in the media consumption of children and young people, has not led to increases in copycat violence by them but rather, based on the facts, dramatic declines in violence by them. Indeed the only age group with rising violent crime is the over 70s!

The latest panic over smartphones will go the same way, as the opening lines of the quote above suggest.

Yet, as in decades before, careerist politicians, ‘top’ educationists and medics will ‘intervene’ to make them feel good but with, in years to come, little evidence of effect.

In July this year, ‘Scunhur’ made the case against the smartphone ban plan,

Here:

21 years ago I read the book at the top by Steven Johnson so it was with delight that I received an email today from 'scunhur' making the case for smart phones making you smart:

By ‘scunhur’:

Imagine these Scottish news headlines:

1. SEXUAL ACTIVITY DOWN IN TEENAGERS
2. TEENAGE PREGNANCY RATES DOWN BY TWO THIRDS
3. DECLINE IN TEENAGE CRIME
4. DECLINE IN TEENAGE VIOLENCE
5. STEEP REDUCTION IN TEENAGE ALCOHOL INTAKE
6. REDUCTION IN TEENAGE DRUG USAGE

It’s all true (well…see 6.):

1. https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/en/publications/trends-in-the-sexual-behaviour-of-15-year-olds-in-scotland-2002-1/.  Since this report it has become harder to obtain useful information due to unethical Government and research behaviour https://www.cypcs.org.uk/news-and-stories/statement-commissioner-raises-concerns-with-scottish-government-about-rights-impact-of-health-and-wellbeing-survey/ and https://www.enlighten.scot/ethical-concerns-of-the-health-wellbeing-census/
2. https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/teenage-pregnancies/teenage-pregnancies-year-of-conception-ending-31-december-2023/ There is a small uptick during the time of emergence from Covid pandemic.
3. https://www.understandingglasgow.com/childrens-indicators/safety/community-safety/youth-crime to 2012 – and https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SCCJR-Youth-Justice.pdf (page 4)
4. https://changingviolence.org/blog/scotlands-young-people-demonstrate-success-in-violence-reduction/index.html (note SCCJR comments on recent youth violence reports https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/news_item/19880/ )
5. SALSUS reports are now archived (Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey) https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20250701090548/https://www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-schools-adolescent-lifestyle-and-substance-use-survey-salsus/ and replacement ‘Health and Wellbeing Census’ was made redundant by the failure of integrity outlined at 1. above. Simple charts of some of the data for alcohol and smoking can be found at https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_1070957_smxx.pdf Even the integrity of this date is undermined by the vaping statistics…the 20% and 30% figures for vaping are ‘ever users’ i.e. at least once in a lifetime. From memory the regular users (at least once per week) for the girls’ stated 30% was actually ~7.4%. Even the vaping figures do not offset the overall smoking reduction.
6. See above 5. for smoking. It is difficult to summarise drug use data due to incoherent age group overlaps and integrity failure (see 1.) Deprecated SALSUS data can be found here https://publichealthscotland.scot/resources-and-tools/health-intelligence-and-data-management/national-data-catalogue/national-datasets/search-the-datasets/scottish-schools-adolescent-lifestyle-and-substance-use-survey-salsus/ and here https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20250701090548/https://www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-schools-adolescent-lifestyle-and-substance-use-survey-salsus/ and here https://statistics.gov.scot/data/drug-use-behaviour-among-young-people-salsus and there is a garbled booklet https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2021/11/review-existing-literature-evidence-young-people-experiencing-harms-alcohol-drugs-scotland2/documents/review-existing-literature-evidence-young-people-experiencing-harms-alcohol-drugs-scotland/review-existing-literature-evidence-young-people-experiencing-harms-alcohol-drugs-scotland/govscot%3Adocument/review-existing-literature-evidence-young-people-experiencing-harms-alcohol-drugs-scotland.pdf more useful in illustrating incoherence than clarity. Data is lacking after 2021 due to unethical behaviour described at 1. Therefore I postulate a reduction in Scottish teenage drug usage from 2005-2007 onwards but cannot at present substantiate that belief.

The main point about each of 1-5 above is that the reduction in harmful behaviour started just as teenagers adopted smartphones from 2005 onwards, culminating in the introduction of the first iPhone in mid (USA) to late (Europe) 2007. There are numerous online references to this phenomenon, all being ignored by those who wish to limit teenage access to mobile phones at school and to social media.

To this it must be added that the supposed harms of phones and social media were brought about by USA law (and watered down sycophantic variations in subservient nations), namely Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Lickspittle western Governments in the USA sphere of influence have failed to hold IT companies and social media providers to account and have failed in particular to ensure that social media providers are at least jointly liable for anything published on their websites, choosing instead to prosecute insufficiently wary members of the public. Such Governments, including the UK and Scotland, are the real cause of online harm being widespread. So revert the Law and make such providers at least jointly liable for all content on their platforms and 100% liable for policies and algorithms which could cause harm. Major powers wishing to be outwith the USA sphere of influence are adopting open source software (OSS) en masse, as are some of the more enlightened western nations. Meantime Scotland is burying itself in the ‘Big Tech’ ecosystem, as I have previously tried to illustrate to The Ferret, while pretending to independence. If only the Scottish Government had provided OSS based phones to pupils instead of its aborted iPad scheme.

There are many advocates for incorporating mobile phones into the educational environment e.g. https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/how-phones-can-increase-learning-all-types-students or https://observer.co.uk/news/opinion-and-ideas/article/do-we-need-a-phone-ban-in-schools-just-ask-the-children or https://blog.tcea.org/integrating-smartphones/

There is little true evidence, beyond ‘expert’ opinion and observational reports, of the supposed harms of mobile phone usage. Such few scientific studies as have been completed to date demonstrate no evidence that restrictive school policies are associated with overall phone and social media use or better mental wellbeing in adolescents. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(25)00003-1/fulltext https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/48/1/59/8371934 According to the American Psychological Association “using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.” Current policy on mobile phones and social media are as evidence free as the UK Government’s Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 (https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/age-restriction-interventions-for-tobacco-and-nicotine-vapour-products-in-children-and-young-people/age-restriction-interventions-for-tobacco-and-nicotine-vapour-products-in-children-and-young-people/). An 18 year old born on 31/12/2008 who is deemed to have purchased a tobacco or vape product for a friend born on 01/01/2009 will be committing a criminal offence in 2027? Really? What would J M Barrie make of the last of Gen Z becoming the first ‘Never Never Adults’?  Or do we all become ‘Never Never Adults’ as all of our phones are age/ID and user-side software restricted?

A huge opportunity still exists to embrace technology (especially OSS) and weave it into the educational curriculum, preparing young Scots for the future. And mobile phones, especially if deployed outwith the Apple and Google ecosystems, are potentially one of the few ‘equalisers’ in an unequal society. Instead headlines 1 – 5 (and maybe 6) will reverse and unpredictable forays into the ‘dark web’ increase as the ‘Never Never Adults’ rebel.

Dare to be different, Scotland