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The Data: Phones & Screens Improve Kids' Mental Health
In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins discuss the controversial topic of allowing children to use smartphones and screens. Simone argues that preventing children from accessing technology can make you a bad parent, citing studies showing that children with access to smartphones, social media, video games, and other digital devices have better self-esteem, spend more time with friends, and engage more in physical activities. They delve into a recent study by the University of South Florida that highlights the benefits of smartphone ownership for kids aged 11 to 13. They also critique arguments from well-known author Jonathan Haidt, who believes that screens are detrimental to children's mental health. The episode also touches on personal anecdotes, discussing the impact of social media on personal and professional lives, and the evolving landscape of media and news reporting.
Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, this is Simone Collins with Malcolm Collins. I'm taking over this dream today because I have found that actually you are a bad parent if you deny your child a phone in screens and that the good parents will do it because guess what?
Kids are better off. When they have social media access, when they have phones and tablets and video games, and
Malcolm Collins: Stu define better off, we're talking about studies here.
Simone Collins: They have, they have less nihilism and a better self-esteem. They spend more time with their friends. They spend more time playing sports.
They are just freaking better off with the screens and all these people. Jonathan Het who insist that the screens are the end are wrong, although we will go through their arguments and talk through some of the nuance. But first, I wanna get to this study because I'm so excited about it. It's very vindicating because we are famous for being profiled by the guardian and criticized by everyone on social media, not only for beating our children, but for having them walking around [00:01:00] the house with iPads.
Chained to their necks. I need
Malcolm Collins: to clarify. Barely beating our children. It was, it was a light
Simone Collins: spot. It was a mild beating. Oh my God.
Soccer Boppers! Soccer Boppers! You can sock all day, and bop all night!
Simone Collins: So first like huge, huge thing to, to Reason Magazine, which covered this article really well. And, and what they're covering is a new, as of April, 2025 study called. Kids with smartphones are less depressed, anxious, and bullied than peers without them.
.
Simone Collins: So first huge hat Tip to Reason magazine for covering this research, which was done by a bunch of researchers at the University of South Florida. This was published in April, so this just came out. And these researchers investigated smartphone ownership among 11 to 13 year olds. So these are.
Extremely vulnerable children who are not at all grown up and mature [00:02:00] enough to handle social media, and they're checking out how they did. So, okay. They, they did survey them, but they surveyed a good sample size. They surveyed 1,510 kids from Florida age 11 to 13.
And basically on almost every metric. Measuring wellbeing, smartphone owning kids showed better results. So here are some examples.
Malcolm Collins: You're not surprised at all. 11, 13. So this isn't like older kids. This isn't like teens. This is No, this is 11 to 13. This is
Simone Collins: just as puberty setting in. So I would actually argue that these are some of the most vulnerable years.
I don't know how this period was for you, but it was tough for me. Maybe not for you. I don't know.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I can't imagine if I didn't have a smartphone. I mean, I didn't have
Published on 7 months, 2 weeks ago