Article run in the May 21st edition of the Daily Sentinel.

Over the past 10 years, the stats on our kids have been scary. Children have become less active, less fit, less happy, less calm, less focused, less attached to their parents, less trusting, less creative, and, according to statistics on childhood suicide, less alive.

It isn’t surprising that their reading, math, history, and civics proficiencies are declining. Simply put, they are not functioning high or well. The U.S. Surgeon General recently stated that the defining public health crisis of our time is the surge in children’s mental health needs and pointed to social media use as the driving force in this crisis. This is a nonpartisan issue. Our children are suffering equally. Technology is at the core of this crisis, but it isn’t every aspect of device use that human brains can’t handle. It’s the algorithms.

Algorithms 101

Early on, the internet was the most amazing invention ever because it allowed most of us to instantly connect with almost everyone, every idea, every bit of knowledge. But regular investors, like banks, were not interested initially because it seemed too risky. Enter venture capitalists, smart folks who saw the potential in technology, but demanded “permanent exponential growth,” (PEG). This means they didn’t want a constant percentage of profit, which is fair. What they wanted was their percentage to increase forever.
PEG isn’t fair because the only way it can happen is for human use of technology to increase constantly, forever, and we each only have 24 hours in a day, and we need some of that time to work, shower, eat, spend time with our kids and maybe clean out the fridge.

The demand for PEG inspired tech innovators to task huge computers to harvest our time and attention. They did so by finding how to increase dopamine-inspired pleasure as well as anger, fear, hate, distrust, self-loathing and overwhelm in each of us. This is now fed to us so that we stay staring at screens full of money-making advertisements. It’s called amplified harm. Algorithms work in anything that feeds us information and dopamine, like social media, news, and gaming. Computers are increasing the amplification of harm done to us and our children every minute of every day. We are now being highly influenced by computers with no souls, no conscience, no skin in the game and no kids.

Currently, the king of amplified harm algorithms is TikTok, a wildly popular app made in China. Two-thirds of U.S. children currently use TikTok an average of an hour and a half a day, with 16% of them using it “constantly.” Not only does TikTok have the best algorithm to keep kids watching, but it uses a different version for kids in China than it uses for our kids. The difference is so pronounced that it has been compared to the difference between feeding their kids spinach (the version given to kids in China) and our kids opium (the version given kids in the rest of the world.) The TikTok version in China shows their children science experiments, museum exhibits, patriotism and educational videos, and children are limited to only 40 minutes a day on the app. This is not even close to the dopamine-saturated content sent 24 hours a day to our kids.
When asked what kids want to be when they grow up, the number one answer in China is an astronaut and U.S. kids say social media influencers. Where these kids put their time and energy will be vastly different, as will their futures.

This is not classified information. We sort of know we are handing our kids the neural equivalent of opium daily. This isn’t because we don’t care, it is because we don’t understand these computers that think quicker than we do. Getting away from algorithms that inspire decreases in social, emotional and cognitive health is going to take some time. A good start is to use apps that make us aware of our family’s current use so we can begin to become powerful technology users. I currently like Family Link. These also allow us to decide how much time we spend on each app. How about we start with limiting TikTok to a half hour a day today? Really. Like right now.

Elizabeth Clark, LPC, is a mental health therapist for children and their families who has been studying the impacts of technology on children’s development and on families. She has a grant from WCCF that allows her to talk with families about powerful technology use. She currently consults with schools and districts on this topic.