Children and Media

Study after study has detailed the stress and anxiety kids and teens deal with as a result of smartphone and social media use. But smar

Investments in high-speed broadband have received considerable attention from policymakers and researchers. Governments are committing to increasing available internet connection speeds through massive public investments. These policies are motivated by arguments according to which improvements in broadband connections play an important role in fostering productivity, economic growth, innovation, and knowledge.

On June 17, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, in partnership with the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, hosted a webinar titled The Power of Partnership: State Strategies for Digital and Educational Equity.

The Los Angeles school board set in motion a plan to ban cellphones all day on campus, saying the devices distract students from learning, lead to anxiety, and allow cyberbullying.

When California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out an ambitious, if hazy, plan to remove smartphones from public classrooms in the interest of kids’ safety, it marked a turnaround that would have shocked any hyper-ambitious Democratic politician from a generation ago. “Connecting kids” was once an obvious political winner.

Gov Gavin Newsom (D-CA) vowed to severely restrict the use of smartphones during the school day, a dramatic move by the nation’s largest state amid dire warnings from the Biden administration that social media harms children. Newsom’s decision comes a day after Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned the threat social media poses to kids is so acute that Congress should compel apps to include warning labels similar to cigarettes and alcohol. Newsom said he would work with his Democratic-dominated Legislature to pass the restrictions during the current session that ends in August.

Adolescents and young adults are facing elevated rates of mental health issues—and they're also struggling with access to the mental health care they urgently need. When young people express the need for professional help, they often encounter obstacles to seeing a therapist, such as prolonged wait times, limited local access to mental health providers, or financial barriers. In light of these barriers, young people turn to social media and digital mental health apps to attempt to fulfill their needs.

One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school was that in an emergency, you don’t have the luxury to wait for perfect information. You assess the available facts, you use your best judgment, and you act quickly.

For decades we have known that for many underprivileged students, leaving the school grounds contributes to a homework gap because they cannot do much schoolwork without a robust internet connection. Bus Wi-Fi could fill a need for the millions of students who have a school-issued laptop but no reliable internet at home.

Can you imagine a future where everyone relies solely on their cellular connection, and they don’t subscribe to a fixed broadband connection at all? Currently, the U.S. government is undertaking a big push to get everyone in the country connected to fiber broadband to close the digital divide. But ironically, a research group from the U.K.