The Data: Phones & Screens Improve Kids' Mental Health

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins discuss the controversial topic of allowing children to use smartphones and screens. Simone argues that preventing children from accessing technology can make you a bad parent, citing studies showing that children with access to smartphones, social media, video games, and other digital devices have better self-esteem, spend more time with friends, and engage more in physical activities. They delve into a recent study by the University of South Florida that highlights the benefits of smartphone ownership for kids aged 11 to 13. They also critique arguments from well-known author Jonathan Haidt, who believes that screens are detrimental to children's mental health. The episode also touches on personal anecdotes, discussing the impact of social media on personal and professional lives, and the evolving landscape of media and news reporting.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, this is Simone Collins with Malcolm Collins. I'm taking over this dream today because I have found that actually you are a bad parent if you deny your child a phone in screens and that the good parents will do it because guess what?

Kids are better off. When they have social media access, when they have phones and tablets and video games, and

Malcolm Collins: Stu define better off, we're talking about studies here.

Simone Collins: They have, they have less nihilism and a better self-esteem. They spend more time with their friends. They spend more time playing sports.

They are just freaking better off with the screens and all these people. Jonathan Het who insist that the screens are the end are wrong, although we will go through their arguments and talk through some of the nuance. But first, I wanna get to this study because I'm so excited about it. It's very vindicating because we are famous for being profiled by the guardian and criticized by everyone on social media, not only for beating our children, but for having them walking around [00:01:00] the house with iPads.

Chained to their necks. I need

Malcolm Collins: to clarify. Barely beating our children. It was, it was a light

Simone Collins: spot. It was a mild beating. Oh my God.

Soccer Boppers! Soccer Boppers! You can sock all day, and bop all night!

Simone Collins: So first like huge, huge thing to, to Reason Magazine, which covered this article really well. And, and what they're covering is a new, as of April, 2025 study called. Kids with smartphones are less depressed, anxious, and bullied than peers without them.

.

Simone Collins: So first huge hat Tip to Reason magazine for covering this research, which was done by a bunch of researchers at the University of South Florida. This was published in April, so this just came out. And these researchers investigated smartphone ownership among 11 to 13 year olds. So these are.

Extremely vulnerable children who are not at all grown up and mature [00:02:00] enough to handle social media, and they're checking out how they did. So, okay. They, they did survey them, but they surveyed a good sample size. They surveyed 1,510 kids from Florida age 11 to 13.

And basically on almost every metric. Measuring wellbeing, smartphone owning kids showed better results. So here are some examples.

Malcolm Collins: You're not surprised at all. 11, 13. So this isn't like older kids. This isn't like teens. This is No, this is 11 to 13. This is

Simone Collins: just as puberty setting in. So I would actually argue that these are some of the most vulnerable years.

I don't know how this period was for you, but it was tough for me. Maybe not for you. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I can't imagine if I didn't have a smartphone. I mean, I didn't have a smartphone. You didn't a smartphone? I didn't have whatever was cool. This would be like I didn't have a smartphone and it was tough.

Okay. Not having like aim during that period being one of the outcasts, you, oh my gosh.

Simone Collins: Actually aim really was like one of my few sources of comfort and I think this is part of it and we're getting get into it. So kids with smartphones, oh, do you

Malcolm Collins: remember all the sounds from aim that like ding [00:03:00]

Simone Collins: and the door opening.

Malcolm Collins: Like door opening A

Simone Collins: would come in and you'd be like, yeah, that, that like, that that dopamine rush when you hear the door opening and maybe that person you have a crush on that just logged on. Oh

Malcolm Collins: my God. Did

Simone Collins: you have crushes

Malcolm Collins: on people

Simone Collins: back in here? 100. His, his username was warped, STIG, and, and he ended up dating one of my best friends at the time, so that was a little awkward.

Oh yeah. Were you, did you think he'd like talk to you? Did he ever talk to you on a Oh, like way late into the night, he was clearly like I. It was emotional cheating going on. At the very least. If they two were dating at that same time, whatever happened, those were like my first, my first late night chats.

Which I think for like any, any young person even today, the, you know, the, the, the, the venue has changed, but the, the thrill of the conversation, not night chat has,

Malcolm Collins: well, okay, so hold on. What did he end up doing with his life?

Simone Collins: I have no [00:04:00] idea.

Malcolm Collins: We'll check it before the end of this. I don't

Simone Collins: even remember what his name was.

He didn't have a very easy life, like he lived at the poverty line, had a single mother. Oh. So, you know, I hope he's doing well. I, I wish him well. As, as I, I wish, well, the. Never, never

Malcolm Collins: wish somebody who didn't date you. Well, Simone, you need to wish the fury upon them. Well,

Simone Collins: I, I wish both of them well. I, I can look up my, my friend, I think she had a kid actually pretty young.

So good for her, right? Like right. Yeah. Oh yeah. Doing the prenatal list thing, right? Yeah. Right. And again, goes to show like income does not correlate with,

Malcolm Collins: Everyone in the aim world, who, who lived at that. They know that door opening. It is always like. Is it my crush? Like, yeah. Are we gonna talk? Yeah.

Are we gonna, are we gonna, it's like ding and it's like, oh my god, it's my crush. Yeah. Oh my God. Like, what are we doing?

Simone Collins: So exciting. Oh yeah, that, that killed me. I'm so glad we both had aim days. And again, like for us, even at that age, [00:05:00] and I would say. Chat rooms at our age were way more dangerous. So we, gosh, it was in the early naughties, like around 2001 I guess, when we're doing this chat rooms.

At the time when, when we were first going online, one of the first things that people would ask you and an anonymous chat room, which is pretty much what all of them were at the time online was a SL. Do you remember that? A-S-L-A-A sex location? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, wait, what? That actually sounds like a great thing.

Like I know a next location, I'm gonna find you. Well, you know, actually it so way, way back in the day, way before the internet. There were some, some comic books that kids would get subscriptions to and at, at the end of them, many of them would, would be little published profiles of kids with their name and addr