Dr. Cal Newport

when you see the first warning signs going up that we need to worry about the potential mental health impacts of these tools, especially social media and smartphones on young people.

And you can track this, right?

I have a talk, I actually gave it my kid's school, they're not happy about this, where I tracked how this research evolved.

And, you know, like any literature, it's contentious at first, and then you begin to see conciliance between different lines of evidence.

And I think where everything now in the last couple of years is starting to come together

This idea of we don't really know if this is bad or not, I think that's just an old take.

The research has moved past that.

And I think where we're landing on is unrestricted internet use pre-puberty is risky.

And like the new standard is going to be post-puberty is probably the right time to be given a device that gives you unrestricted access.

We're talking like 16 is probably the appropriate age.

So this does not make me popular at the middle school where my son, my oldest son's about to go.

I think in two or three years, that's just going to be common sense.

This is the direction I see the research literature and the advocacy going.

And I think there's a solid ground for this.

Yeah.

I mean, there are definitely issues with it.

I mean, look, I'm not a social psychologist.

I just sort of play one in my articles.

But I've looked into this literature extensively.

There's a bit of a gendered breakdown that has a lot of overlaps where when they're looking at potential harms of these technologies, young adolescents, right, pre-adolescent, young adolescents, you tend to see social media to be more a signal for cognitive distress for teenagers.