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Smartphones have become a constant companion in our teens’ lives. From connection with family and friends to entertainment and literal white noise, young people rely on their smartphones for different types of support, relaxation, and distraction—at home and at school, and during the day and night.

This new report fills a gap in understanding around how teens actually use their smartphones, combining data from kids’ own phones with feedback from our Youth Advisory Council. Teens told us that the draw of their smartphone is both complicated and powerful. They’re managing a barrage of notifications from the apps on their phones—buzzing almost constantly. Phone use in school is common, but policies are inconsistent. Smartphones both help and hurt their sleep, and apps like TikTok provide easy, effortless access to personalized content that provides both relaxation and distraction.

The good news is that many young people have grown savvier about how their phones try to draw them in, and they’re taking steps to protect their digital well-being. But the business model of these apps and devices depends on users picking up their phones and engaging with them as much as possible, and it’s clear that young people are struggling to set boundaries. Helping kids develop digital well-being requires support from parents, educators, and the tech industry itself.

Read the Report Here

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Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have harnessed powerful algorithms to captivate millions of users with endless streams of entertaining videos and content, transforming the way new generations scroll through their screens.

But critics, from policymakers to concerned parents, say those algorithms lead young people down rabbit holes of problematic content, from misinformation and risky social media challenges to dangerous videos about eating disorders and self-harm.

New York State officials on Wednesday unveiled a bill to protect young people from potential mental health risks by prohibiting minors from accessing algorithm-based social media feeds unless they have permission from their parents.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Letitia James, the state attorney general, announced their support of new legislation to crack down on the often inscrutable algorithms, which they argue are used to keep young users on social media platforms for extended periods of time — sometimes to their detriment.

If the bill is passed and signed into law, anyone under 18 in New York would need parental consent to access those feeds on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and other social media platforms that use algorithms to display personalized content. While other states have sought far-reaching bans and measures on social media apps, New York is among a few seeking to target the algorithms more narrowly.
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The legislation, for example, would target TikTok’s central feature, its ubiquitous “For You” feed, which displays boundless reams of short-form videos based on user interests or past interactions. But it would not affect a minor’s access to the chronological feeds that show posts published by the accounts that a user has decided to follow.

“Our children are in crisis, and it’s up to us to save them,” Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, said during a news conference in Manhattan, using stark terms to compare the addictive effects of social media to underage drinking and smoking.

“Do you understand how an algorithm works?” she asked. “It follows you. It preys on you.”

The bill would also allow parents to limit the number of hours their children can spend on a platform and block their child’s access to social media apps overnight, from midnight until 6 a.m., as well as pause notifications during that time.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said that algorithms allow teens to find like-minded interests and communities, and that it uses them to quickly identify and remove harmful content from its platforms. Both Meta and TikTok also pointed to a range of tools the companies have implemented to give parents increased control and limit the types of content teens can see.

“We want young people to have safe, positive experiences across the internet,” Antigone Davis, the head of global safety at Meta, said in a statement.

Tech:NYC, which represents more than 800 tech companies, raised objections to the proposed legislation, suggesting it could infringe on free speech. It also raised logistical and privacy concerns with verifying the identities and age of users, which it said could require sharing government documents.

Policies to curb the effect of social media on youth mental health have attracted bipartisan support. President Biden in his State of the Union this year called on Congress to ban targeted advertising online for children. In May, the surgeon general warned against the detrimental effect that intensive social media usage can have on anxiety and depression among adolescents.

Earlier this year, Montana enacted an outright ban on TikTok, resulting in a lawsuit being financed by the social media giant that has held up enforcement of the law.

In March, Utah became the first state to pass a law, set to take effect next year, that will require users under 18 to receive consent of a parent or guardian to create a social media account; Arkansas would have become the first state to implement such a law in August, but it was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

And following a landmark law in the European Union last year, users there are allowed to easily opt out of so-called personalized content feeds.

The bill in New York, which could be considered as soon as January when the 2024 legislative session begins, is likely to confront resistance from tech industry groups. The bill’s sponsors, State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, said they were readying for a fight.

But Ms. Hochul’s enthusiastic support of the bill — she rarely joins lawmakers to introduce bills — is a sign that it could succeed in the State Capitol, which Democrats control.

A second bill unveiled on Wednesday is meant to protect children’s privacy by prohibiting websites from “collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data” from anyone under 18 for the purpose of advertising, unless they receive consent, according to a news release.

“Social media platforms manipulate the content children see online to keep them on the platforms as long as possible,” Ms. James said. “They know that the more time children spend online, the more ads they will see and the more data that can be collected to sell to advertisers.”

Both bills would empower the state attorney general to go after platforms found in violation.

Common Sense Media released a new research report revealing that teens are constantly receiving and fielding notifications on their smartphones. According to the report, “Constant Companion: A Week in the Life of a Young Person’s Smartphone Use,” over half of participants received 237 or more notifications per day. The barrage of notifications, along with smartphone use during school days and nighttime, combines to create a powerful yet complicated relationship between teens and their phones.

The new report fills a gap in understanding around how teens actually use their smartphones, combining data voluntarily collected from kids’ own phones with feedback about the data collected from Common Sense Media’s Youth Advisory Council. The conversations provide insights into the push and pull that adolescents feel with their phones, including the apps they love, the pressure they feel to respond, and the strategies they use to balance their smartphone use. For example, while TikTok was one of the most popular and longest-duration apps for teens in the study, a Youth Council member said that “the algorithm for TikTok is just way more addicting … it draws you in more.”

“This report makes it abundantly clear that teens are struggling to manage their phone use, which is taking a serious toll on their ability to focus and overall mental health,” said James P. Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media. “Young people need more support from family members and educators, as well as clear guardrails from the technologists who are intentionally designing these devices to be addictive, at the expense of kids’ well-being.”

Read more here. 

We should do the same in America.

Several Israeli and Jewish schools are reportedly urging parents to delete social media apps like Instagram, TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, from their children’s smartphones to prevent them from seeing violent images and videos related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

One Tel Aviv school’s parents’ association warned of the possibility that Hamas fighters may release graphic videos of hostages “begging for their lives,” CNN reported on Tuesday.

Several Jewish schools in the U.S. have also issued similar warnings, reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which added that “It was not clear where the information about forthcoming hostage videos was coming from.”

Read more here. 

More than a third of US schools don’t have a single nurse on-site – despite record rates of disease and mental health problems in students

It comes as America is dealing with high rates of chronic illnesses among K-12 students, including diabetes and asthma, plus record rates of mental health issues, which evidence suggests were exacerbated by school closures during the Covid pandemic.

Read more here. 

Listen here. 

Unaccompanied migrant children are navigating the bowels of the city’s subway system and trains to peddle candies to strangers.

On Wednesday, an 11-year-old migrant girl exited an uptown B train at the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station all on her own, carrying a cardboard box filled with peanut M&M’s, Skittles, and Kinder Buenos for sale.

“My mother is on the other side,” the child told The Post in Spanish, before running off solo to tug at riders’ jackets and pant legs and offer treats for $2 a pop.

The mom, who had been selling goodies on the downtown platform, did not say where she and her daughter were from or staying and declined to speak further.

Last week, a young girl in a purple jacket was spotted toting a box full of candy while traveling alone between subway cars aboard a C train, according to footage shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The child had been spotted repeatedly selling candy, usually between the 14th and 59th street stations during rush hour, and was believed to be 6 years old, according to the video’s poster.

Read more here.

Raven exists to transform our nation’s response to child exploitation.

As the first and only 501(c)4 group focused on child exploitation in the United States, we work with lawmakers, advocates, agencies, and organizations who are willing to challenge the status quo and fight to protect our most vulnerable citizens.

Raven will lobby for law and policy changes to better protect children and bring perpetrators to justice. The discrepancies in state laws often mean perpetrators are not held accountable, leaving them to continue to exploit children.