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Law in the Internet Society
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What is raising your kids?: Understanding the Internet “Addiction” Affecting American Youth-- By EsmeraldaHernandez - 03 Dec 2024 I grew up without an internet connection at home. I spent my childhood in a rural area in south Georgia, and, until the middle of my high school career, the area in which I lived did not have the infrastructure needed to provide internet access. I distinctly remember staying after school to type up reports in my school computer lab (or staying in the public library and begging the librarians to override the thirty-minute kids’ internet limit). Still, I wasn’t ever bored. I used to read voraciously, and I loved to draw silly doodles and write rambling short stories. Now when I go back to my hometown, I see how much digital technology has taken over the day-to-day of the children I interact with. Everywhere I go, I almost always see a child with a tablet, or a teen scrolling online. It’s such a shock, but this is what happens with the dawn of reliable internet access. Or is it? As of 2022, a Pew research survey reported that the majority of American teens had access to a smartphone, desktop or laptop computers, or gaming consoles. The number of teens that believe that they are online almost constantly has roughly doubled since 2014-15, with around 97% of teens saying that they used the internet daily. Almost three-quarters of teens in this survey report visiting YouTube? at least daily, and a majority visited Tiktok daily. In the U.S., there is no classification for internet addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V). However, there is an entry for Internet Gaming Addiction. So, does the unhealthy attachment to social media and video games mean that children should be denied access to the internet? Should we monitor children and force apps to pick and choose who to ban? Not exactly. It’s not the children that are the problem, it’s the addictive nature of sites and the lack of excellent educational and exploratory content available to children.The psychology behind the "addiction"As we’ve discussed in class, some aspects of the internet are designed to allow us to surrender an anxiety to the machine, but they also give us another anxiety in turn. There is no doubt about the fact that social media sites and video games are designed to encourage habitual use. Children and young adults with internet addiction appear to experience changes in brain chemistry that lead to more addictive behaviors, according to a 2022 study. This study found that there was a visibly increased activity in parts of the brain when individuals with high internet usage were resting. There was also a decrease in the connectivity in parts of the brain that involved in memory and decision making. This resulted in addictive behaviors and behavioral changes—linked to decreased mental health quality, intellectual ability, and physical coordination—in teens. The notification draws the user’s attention. Sometime’s it’s something that needs attention, like a message from someone the user cares about, or an upload from someone they want to hear from. Other times it’s something completely random, like a suggestion of someone the user might know, or a reminder that the user’s online shopping cart is still full. Still, once the user’s attention is on the phone, they have the opportunity to click on it and immediately open the app. Once that happens, there is a high chance that the user will spend time on the app unrelated to tending to the original notification. This time spent on the app allows the app to continue to draw data from the user, thus informing the site on what exactly gets the user to return again and again. The habit-building does not stop there. The gamified aspects of social media and technology add a new dimension that encourages repeated, regular usage. Users look to rack up likes and shares on social media sites. Listening apps give users scores for how many minutes they’ve streamed and rank the artists they listen to. The chatroom app Discord now encourages users to watch ads by naming them “Discord Quests”. Some apps like Snapchat develop “streaks” to encourage users to come back day after day to use the app to communicate with someone. Having the streak gives nothing to the user but a fire icon, but users still come back because they cannot bear to lose it.There’s a problem. What could the answer be?Dr. Jenny Radesky, expert on the psychology of digital technology and its effects on children and assistant professor of developmental behavioral pediatrics at the University of Michigan advocates for the use of technology as “an environment” where children can interact with others, learn concepts, and explore the world around them. Dr. Radesky, who does not prefer to use the term “addiction” in her research or clinical work, acknowledges that the wording of this helps people understand that the design of the sites that children and other users interact with is habit-forming. Still, the word addiction lends itself to blaming the behavior on the individual and not on the environment that makes this behavior. Helping children understand these mechanisms allows them not only to become more digitally literate, but also to allows them to make decisions on their own screen usage. Helping children grow up to be well-adjusted adults does not necessarily imply overarching control and the destruction of autonomy for kids. The problem is not in human nature, but it is in the features of apps and sites that are built to trap users in a sisyphean dilemma. Screens can be a tool for learning, and it can be argued that they should be a part of a young one’s education. Still, making sure that children have access to other stimuli is equally as important. Like anything else, digital technology is good in moderation, and with the right balance, technology can be a friend.You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
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