Sander van der Linden, professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge, said social media use is usually more of a habit than an addiction.<\/p>\n
“In the DSM, the psychiatric manual, there is no such thing as a social media addiction diagnosis,” he said.<\/p>\n
“A small minority of people are physically addicted to social media. For most people, it’s a bad habit that can escalate if we don’t do something about it.”<\/p>\n
Prof van der Linden said he does not believe that a ban is not the most effective way to deal with the issue, adding that social media companies should be held accountable instead.<\/p>\n
“Most scientists seem pretty aligned that a ban isn’t a nuanced solution. You see that in Australia – it’s not working. Most kids are getting around it anyway.”<\/p>\n
His advice to parents to help get their kids out of the habit: “Limit screen time, think about alternative activities, audit their social media every now and then and talk to them about what’s going on in their feeds.”<\/p>\n
Technology minister Liz Kendall called the ban a “defining moment for our children”, saying it will “give them the freedom to be children again” and “put power back into parents’ hands”.<\/p>\n
Several youth organisations are calling for a wider conversation about what young people are being offered instead of social media.<\/p>\n
Mendip Adventure, a family-run outdoor activity provider based in Somerset said the debate should also focus on creating more opportunities for children and teenagers to build confidence, resilience, and social skills \u2013 away from the screen.<\/p>\n
David Eddins, CEO of Mendip Adventure, said: “Reducing young people’s exposure to harmful online spaces may be part of the answer, but it cannot be the whole answer.<\/p>\n
“If we take something away, we need to offer something better in its place. <\/p>\n
“Outdoor adventure gives young people the chance to go beyond their comfort zone, and experience achievement away from a screen. That’s where the real opportunity is.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sander van der Linden, professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge, said social media use is usually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-650371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}