Impact of various media on health

We’re all falling for Alexa, unless we’re falling for Google Assistant, or Siri, or some other genie in a smart speaker. Privacy concerns have not stopped the march of these devices into our homes, however. Amazon, Google, and other tech corporations have grand ambitions. They want to colonize everyday space. The company that succeeds in cornering the smart-speaker market will lock appliance manufacturers, app designers, and consumers into its ecosystem of devices and services, just as Microsoft tethered the personal-computer industry to its operating system in the 1990s. 

Mill Valley (CA), a city just outside of San Francisco, has unanimously voted to ban fifth-generation (5G) cellular towers, claiming that they pose a significant threat to public health. In an urgency ordinance, Mill Valley city council voted earlier in Sept to block deployments of 5G towers and small cells (smaller, lower powered cellular radios used to expand cellular coverage) in residential areas.

This survey is the second wave of an ongoing study tracking social media use among American teenagers: how often they use social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, or Facebook; their attitudes about social media’s role in their lives; experiences they have on social media; and how social media makes them feel. As such, it offers a unique opportunity to observe changes in social media use over time, and to deepen our understanding of the role of social media in teens’ lives. Some key findings:

A bipartisan bill now in Congress would give the National Institutes of Health $95 million over five years to fund studies on how media and technology effect children.

Amid roiling debates about the impact of screen time on teenagers, roughly half of those ages 13 to 17 are themselves worried they spend too much time on their cellphones. Some 52% of US teens report taking steps to cut back on their mobile phone use, and similar shares have tried to limit their use of social media (57%) or video games (58%), a new Pew Research Center survey finds. Fully 72% of teens say they often or sometimes check for messages or notifications as soon as they wake up, while roughly four-in-ten say they feel anxious when they do not have their cellphone with them.

An explosion of new digital options for kids' entertainment has pulled children's attention away from live TV to instant, on-demand programming, bringing with it new challenges for producers, policymakers and parents. TV networks are trying to modernize in order to keep up with kids' viewing habits. And a recent Federal Communications Commission proposal would relax kids' TV rules to let traditional broadcasters compete with digital channels, like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube, that do not have to follow those rules.

A study of the causal effects of access to high-speed Internet on sleep. Playing video games, using PC or smartphones, watching TV or movies are correlated with shorter sleep duration. The researchers exploit historical differences in pre-existing telephone infrastructure that affected the deployment of high-speed Internet across Germany to identify a source of plausibly exogenous variation in access to broadband. Using this instrumental variable strategy, they find that access to high-speed Internet (DSL) access reduces sleep duration and sleep satisfaction.

Technology experts and scholars have never been at a loss for concerns about the current and future impact of the internet. Over the years of canvassings by Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, many experts have been anxious about the way people’s online activities can undermine truth, foment distrust, jeopardize individuals’ well-being when it comes to physical and emotional health, enable trolls to weaken democracy and community, compromise human agency as algorithms become embedded in more activities, kill privacy, make institutions less secure, open u

Internet-connected locks, speakers, thermostats, lights and cameras that have been marketed as the newest conveniences are now also being used as a means for harassment, monitoring, revenge and control.  In more than 30 interviews with The New York Times, domestic abuse victims, their lawyers, shelter workers and emergency responders described how the technology was becoming an alarming new tool.

In a comment to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) about potential safety issues associated with Internet-connected consumer products, staff of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection (BCP) warned that poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices could pose a consumer safety hazard and outlined ways to mitigate such risks. BCP Staff submitted a response to the CPSC as part of the agency’s Request for Comments on potential safety issues and hazards associated with Internet-connected consumer products.