How to actually get kids off their phones

It was the last day of school before winter break, and Aiden and his eighth-grade classmates were playing a game of Mafia . After the first round, though, one of Aiden’s friends got bored and quit playing. How to actually get kids off their phones Social media bans don’t have to be just for children. Anna North is a senior correspondent for Vox, where she covers American family life, work, and education. Previously, she was an editor and writer at the New York Times. She is also the author of four novels, including the forthcoming Bog Queen, which you can preorder here . Another friend called him a “screenager,” Aiden recalled - “like, your attention span is so short.” The incident was an example of a larger trend, Aiden, one of several Scholastic Kid Reporters I talked to for this story, told me: “People are less likely to have fun and enjoy being around other people, and they prefer being around technology.” Five years ago, the national conversation about young people and social media was dominated by worries about cyberbullying , online harassment, and body image . Today, the biggest fear among teens and adults alike is, arguably, brainrot : the idea that social media sites, especially short-form video platforms like TikTok, have eroded young people’s ability to pay attention to anything for longer than a few seconds. But as much as users of all ages seem to agree that the rise of short-form video creates problems for young people and for society, few agree on a solution. Social media bans like the one that took effect in Australia earlier this month have been met with optimism in some quarters , but many are skeptical. “It’s not going to work,” said Sameer Hinduja , co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University . “Youth are going to circumvent them.” If anything, the shift to short-form video is a reminder of how difficult it is for parents and policymakers to keep up with shifts in young people’s digital lives, and how hard it can be to solve or even identify problems arising from a technology as ubiquitous and ever-changing as social media. The short-form video revolution It’s not your imagination: Young people today are spending an increasing amount of time watching short videos on their phones. Among kids ages 0 to 8, viewing on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts jumped from an average of 1 minute in 2020 to 14 minutes in 2024, according to Common Sense Media , with older kids likely posting higher numbers. Like any media, these videos vary in quality, but they have elicited special concern from parents and researchers alike. One recent review of research on short-form video found an association between consumption of such content and poorer cognitive performance, especially in the areas of attention and inhibitory control . Rapid-fire videos get young people “habituated to short content,” said Gloria Mark , a professor of...

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