I really like how there are a bunch of social media things in the upper answers, but seeing Facebook has a smaller percentage than "social media" sounds like mental gymnastics to justify its usage.
Absolutely, they should have grouped all online social media together. It is strange that they separated mobile phones and smartphones, but I can see the distinction. Communication vs distraction really.
I really want to know how much guns are actually affecting these kids, with differentiation against media fear mongering of guns. I know even asking the question that way makes my point obvious but it's something that DEEPLY interests me and always has
I wish 2 girls one cup wasn't invented but all these years later I'm fine and a hard working citizen. In my day it was finding someone throwing out a pile of Playboys and creating a fort in the woods to store them. Technology isnt the problem - human nature is the problem.
Im cool with everything but the cancer that is social media. Social media makes kids angry, mean, creates drama in friend groups and reinforces delusional ideas that your parents are "abusing" you.
Some parents are abusive and deserve what's coming to them, but pre-teens don't really understand or know what abuse really is and what it takes for the state or government to get involved.
An example is a parent yelling at her daughter. Taking her phone and forcing her to have no outside contact with her friends for say the weekend.
Now, that kid will call that child abuse. Tell all her friends that she is getting abused. Post about it when she gets her phone back, etc. Convince her friends to build up courage to call child services or seek out adults that appeal to those vulnerabilities. Those adults turn those into something else and exploit them sexually or in some other twisted means.
I've seen this with one of my own kids' friends. I've worked in the state child care system and have seen abuse with the unfortunate outcomes.
Real abuse should be exposed, but kids can twist punishments into abuse, and social media can reinforce this. Not improving the relationship, but driving it apart. That's what I was trying to convey.