Written evidence submitted by Youthworks Consulting (SMH0120)

The annual Cybersurvey, now in its 10th year, explores the online experiences of young people. The Cybersurvey has run annually for ten years, the last six of which it has run consecutively in Suffolk. Over 38,000 young people have responded. Dr Aiman El Asam leads our research partnership, currently studying vulnerable children and young people online. I am an author of three books on e-safety and a CPD accredited trainer.

•                   What evidence there is on the effects of social media and screen-use on young people’s physical and mental well-being — for better and for worse — and any gaps in the evidence;

The impact of social media and screen-use on young people has been the subject of many sensationalist headlines recently that suggest the impacts are all harmful. These include the impacts of social media on mental health or video games on aggression. This is not always based on robust evidence, as academics have recently argued[i].

Young people are emotionally affected by the impacts of bullying and being ostracised whether it is on or offline.[ii] It is not uniquely related to social media. Young people report that they are still more likely to be bullied offline than online. However being bullied or isolated by classmates or friends is likely to migrate online or onto mobiles where texting or misuse of images adds to the pain. The impact is magnified when it is face to face in school or on the way there, plus it follows the victim home and is a 24/7 invasion of their lives. Young people report that the impact of a written insult or taunt may be greater because it is not said in the heat of the moment but implies the perpetrator considered it and that there is likely to be an audience viewing it. In addition the victim can return to the hurtful message repeatedly becoming increasingly distressed or comparing themselves to others.

Cyberbullying increases at ages 14-15 to 35% whereas among the whole sample aged 10-16 years it is currently 22%. Emotional health is more volatile at this age, suggesting that more attention should be paid to teens’ emotional health and relationships education generally.[iii] Provision of Child Mental Health services have reduced markedly since 2013 when smartphones first became widely owned by young people. The lack of prevention and early intervention in child and adolescent mental health along with the loss of educational psychologists in many areas has had an effect which is often attributed solely to social media or smartphones. Wider economic and social issues should be considered alongside digital life when searching for reasons for the rise in mental health problems among young people.

The current tendency is to blame social media for everything, but this is lazy. It is after all a tool and can be used by young people in numerous ways both positive and negative. The majority use it to support one another, offer comfort and friendship when someone is distressed, social media provides a sense of being ‘connected’ and is used for relaxation by young people after school (over 2/3 of 14 year olds).  But there is a sizeable minority who are very vulnerable offline. Research by El Asam and Katz shows that these young people are also significantly more vulnerable online than their peers. They come to harm in numerous different ways online, suggesting that a different approach is required to support them in more nuanced ways. These vulnerable groups are: Looked after children, Young Carers, Those with Physical disabilities, those with Mental Health difficulties, those with Special Needs and those with Communications difficulties whether it be speech difficulties of not having English as a first language[iv]

Any activity which causes young people to be sedentary for very long periods might be considered harmful to them if they have little physical activity or interaction with other children, however if a child were engrossed in a book most parents would be pleased. The issue is not so much how long a child spends online, although excessive hours are problematic, rather it is what they are actually looking at or doing when they are online. Doing something online with a parent or having screens used as a babysitting tool? It should be remembered that a young person can view pro-anorexia or pro- extremist content in a short time online.

There is a gap in evidence of the extent of harm caused to small children whose parents do not make eye contact with them because they are looking at their phones.

•                   The areas that should be the focus of any further research needed, and why;

Current online safety education has not been evaluated. Some researchers suggest we may be delivering the wrong messages – i.e. scaremongering and then giving information has not proved successful in other areas of giving information to young people.[v] Less than 2/3 of young people say they always follow the online safety guidelines they were taught. This drops dramatically in the mid teen years, among 15 year olds to 38%.[vi]

Our research hopes to continue exploring the online lives of vulnerable young people and how they may be helped.

How should messages be delivered? How can outcomes be improved for young people who do report a problem? Too many report that the problem stayed the same or worsened after they told someone about it. There is a clear pattern showing that vulnerable young people who experience one category of risk online, can be predicted to experience or encounter other categories of risk. Further work would explore the tools needed by frontline services to prevent and respond.

• The well-being benefits from social media usage, including for example any apps that provide mental-health benefits to users;
  Some therapists suggest apps to patients that can be used to focus on relaxation, self-esteem or simply support groups.
  Drawing apps, music apps and other group interests appear to help young people relax or connect with others, and as one young person said of their phone: ‘I feel free, not alone’. Another described their mobile as mood changing: ‘It makes me calm down if I’m angry, like on a relaxing game. Being able to connect to people online is helpful to those who struggle to do this: ‘It makes me feel safe, I can escape the constant task of maintaining appropriate eye contact during social confrontation’[vii] In addition for those who feel isolated, being able to talk to ‘people like me’ through a social media group can be a lifeline for young people with disabilities or those who question their gender for example.
   

•                   The physical/mental harms from social media use and screen-use, including: safety online risks, the extent of any addictive behaviour, and aspects of social media/apps which magnify such addictive behaviour;

There are those who propose that gaming is addictive (Zimbardo and Coulombe[viii]). This is contested for example by Dr Andrew Przybylski, based at the Oxford Internet Institute, quoted in The Guardian[ix] Recently, his work[x] has looked at the extent to which different doses of video game play might affect childhood wellbeing. “Essentially, compared to young people who don’t play video games at all, those who play about an hour per day tend to have higher levels of life satisfaction, lower levels of externalising problems (so they’re less likely to have issues with conduct and hyperactivity), whereas those who tend to play or more 3 hours per day tend to come off worse off on those measures” he says. “But these differences are very small – between 1 and 2 percent of a child’s functioning is in any way correlated with their video game play.”

•                   Any measures being used, or needed, to mitigate any potential harmful effects of excessive screen-use — what solutions are being used?;
  I have not seen any measures that are being used other than warnings and parents being told to limit screentime.

As coding is in the curriculum I have seen code clubs for small children (Mama Codes) that foster greater agency and creativity, rather than passive consuming of online content. Children start off their introduction to online life through actively making and doing rather than passively viewing. They appear to feel more in control of their online lives as a consequence but this has not yet been measured.

•                   The extent of awareness of any risks, and how awareness could be increased for particular groups — children, schools, social media companies, Government, etc;

A more nuanced message is needed. Simplistic messages and sensational media headlines risk taking attention away from some troubling risks and focusing on others. For example a focus only on social media tends to make families and frontline professionals overlook harmful content.  It is possible for a vulnerable young person to come to immense harm online or on a mobile without using social media.

•                   What monitoring is needed, and by whom;
  n/a

•                   What measures, controls or regulation are needed;
  The new GDPR should be of help in several ways. Sites should be under an obligation to respond or act within a time limit when users report an issue of concern. They should be encouraged to simplify terms and conditions and remind users of privacy settings frequently and whenever the site makes changes to the latter.

Increased measures are needed to improve the way all local agencies working with children and young people are trained and supported to deliver better responses to cases with an online component and to educate young people and families. We have found a wide variation in the ability of services to respond, weak assessment tools and poor data collection which hampers referrals, staff training and evaluation.[xi]

•                   Where responsibility and accountability should lie for such measures;

The complexity of the global nature of online life suggests that working together with other countries is the only solution to working with digital giants. National and local government should have responsibility for staff training and awareness as mentioned above, along with properly evidence advice to parents.

April 2018