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Cellphone bans spread: 'This has got to stop'
Schools across the country are banning cell phones in hopes of reducing distractions and refocusing students on academics, writes Donna...

Joanne Jacobs
May 12, 20232 min read


Digital danger: Screen time is stealing childhood
Screen time is very bad for kids, argues Michel Desmurget, a French neuroscientist, in Screen Damage: The Dangers of Digital Media for...

Joanne Jacobs
Mar 12, 20232 min read


TikTok sets limits for teens as mental health worries grow
Social media is a major cause of the mental illness epidemic in teen girls, argues social psychologist Jon Haidt. Fifty-seven percent of...

Joanne Jacobs
Mar 5, 20232 min read


Young, liberal and depressed: Doomers are not OK
Liberals are the most depressed among the growing number of sad teenagers, writes Matthew Yglesias on Slow Boring. Teenage girls are...

Joanne Jacobs
Mar 4, 20232 min read


Sad girls: Social isolation predates Covid
Fifty-seven percent of teenage girls felt "persistently sad or hopeless" in 2021, reports the Centers for Disease Control. That's double...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 18, 20231 min read


Don't risk freedom, privacy to protect kids from social media
In their zeal to protect children from social media, Utah legislators are debating legislation that would usurp parents' rights and...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 12, 20232 min read


It's only Schoolhouse Rock (but I like it)
I'm so old I don't know the words to Conjunction Junction. Schoolhouse Rock, animated musical shorts on grammar, history, civics,...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 3, 20232 min read


Why parents fear social media
Parents' concerns about their teenagers' social media use focuses on access to explicit sexual content and time wasting, writes Risa...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 9, 20231 min read


Seattle schools sue TikTok and others for kids' mental-health crisis
Seattle Public Schools is suing social media companies, reports Julie Calhoun on King 5 News. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 9, 20232 min read


AI is learning to censor social media, and your taxes are paying for it
President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan includes half a million dollars for research in technology to detect and remove...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 23, 20221 min read


Home alone
Americans are socializing a lot less, staying home alone a lot more, writes economist Bryce Ward in the Washington Post. That's true for...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 4, 20222 min read


Without phones, school is calmer and students are listening, talking
Banning cell phones transformed a Philadelphia high school, reports Kristen A. Graham in the Inquirer. Students were ignoring teachers --...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 24, 20222 min read


Can online privacy laws make the net safe for kids?
A new California law will try to protect children online by requiring safeguards for users under 18, reports Natasha Singer in the New...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 17, 20222 min read


Get kids off social media
"Social media is no place for kids," writes Yuval Levin in a New York Times op-ed. He advocates raising the age requirement for social...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 5, 20222 min read


Screen time all the time
"Screen time here to stay," writes Cari Spencer on The 74. Teachers are trying to use the technology to engage students, even as they...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 5, 20222 min read


‘I’m sending my kids to screen-free schools’
Photo: Natureaddict/Pixabay Auguste Meyrat is sending his children to “screen-free” schools, he writes in The Federalist. As a teacher,...

Joanne Jacobs
May 6, 20221 min read
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