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https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/10/adults-broke-the-internet-and-theyre-trying-to-fix-it-by-kicking-kids-off/>
"It’s no secret that I’m a fan of developmental psychologist Candice Odgers.
I’ve mentioned her and her work on the site many times, and she was a guest on
my podcast as well. She actually has expertise and has done the work to look at
the impact of social media on kids. In many ways she’s the anti-Jonathan Haidt
with actual facts, not made up nonsense (which is why when she debated Haidt,
he came out of it looking pathetic).
Odgers gave a TED Talk recently, which is now online. It’s worth watching in
its entirety (only about 12 minutes) as she details how the moral panic about
kids and social media is bullshit, and how banning kids from social media will
do way more damage to their mental health:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzbz--aPQLE
A few choice quotes (though, again, watch the whole thing). First, she points
out that on many important metrics (including the metrics many teenagers were
judged by in past generations), we’re doing incredibly well:
in the past 20 years, we’ve had some major wins.
Rates of teen violence, alcohol use, pregnancy have plummeted to historic
lows.
You are looking at the most educated generation ever in terms of high school
graduation. Young people are inventors. They’re activists. They’re leaders.
They’re amazing singers. They’re Olympians. They’re amazing.
And, yes, in some cases they’re more anxious and sadder about the world.
Though, some of that may just be
the state of the world today. And while she
doesn’t say this, I know I’ve heard her talk about it before: some of her work
from way back started from the premise that the reason kids were stressed out
and anxious was because of social media, but repeated studies failed to find
any indication of that (some of which we’ve reported on).
As Odgers points out, the reality is that it’s the adults that are the
problem."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
