Kids Aren't Addicted to Phones — Here's the Data (The Top Academic Studying Social Media & Children Breaks Things Down)

Is social media actually destroying a generation, or are we in the middle of a massive political moral panic?

For this week's Free Speech Friday I sat down with one of the world's leading researchers studying young people, technology, and mental health to answer one question: Did social media really create a generation-wide mental health crisis?

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For years we've been told that smartphones and social media are fueling anxiety, depression, loneliness, and suicide among teenagers. Politicians, bestselling authors, and news outlets have treated that idea as settled science.

But what does the actual research say?

Developmental psychologist Candice Odgers has spent decades studying how young people use technology. In this interview, we break down what the evidence actually shows, why many experts disagree with the popular narrative, and how the social media panic is influencing online safety laws, censorship, surveillance, age verification, and internet policy around the world.

We discuss:

• The real relationship between social media and teen mental health

• Why correlation is often mistaken for causation

• What studies actually find about screen time

• The debate around The Anxious Generation

• Why many scientists reject claims that phones are driving a mental health epidemic

• Online safety laws and age verification

• Privacy, surveillance, and internet censorship

• What parents should actually focus on

• The future of social media regulation