Should we ban social media for children? With Daniel Angus and Jennifer Powers

Is a blanket social media ban for children the best way to mitigate its harmful impact? 

Join host Lea Hofer in the inaugural episode of Disagreeing Well, the podcast from University College London and Students' Union UCL that equips you with tools and techniques to navigate challenging conversations. This episode dives into the hotly debated question of a blanket social media ban for children. 

We hear from two guests with sharply contrasting views: 

• Professor Daniel Angus from the Queensland University of Technology, who argues a social media ban is a "blunt instrument" that won't address the root causes of issues like cyberbullying or body image concerns and could even exacerbate them. His research emphasises a nuanced, evidence-based approach to digital media and society. 
• Jennifer Powers, founder of the Unplugged Coalition, who believes a social media ban for under 16s is a crucial step to protect children from the "addictive by design" nature of platforms and their proven negative impacts on mental health and educational attainment. She highlights a growing parental movement calling for stricter boundaries on internet-enabled devices. 

UCL's resident expert mediator, Dr. Melanie Garson, guides the discussion, helping to unpack the underlying anxieties and different perspectives on children's agency and responsibility in the digital world. The episode concludes with reflections on the mediation techniques used and tips for disagreeing better.

Key takeaways from this episode: 

• Understanding diverse perspectives: Explore the complex arguments for and against a social media ban, rooted in different research, experiences, and concerns. 
• The role of emotion in debate: Discover how underlying anxieties and emotions can influence how we approach difficult topics and our ability to find common ground. 
• Techniques for constructive disagreement: Learn about the "stepping back" technique used by our mediator to encourage a broader view of the problem and identify shared goals, even amidst strong disagreements. 

Tune in to gain insights into this critical debate and equip yourself with the skills to engage in more fruitful conversations.

This production was led by our student presenters, Lea Hofer and Tara Constantine, who are participants on Students’ Union UCL’s Impartial Chairs Programme. Find out more about the programme and how to apply if you are a student - visit Impartial Chairs Programme.

This is a Research Podcasts production for UCL. 

Episode Credits

Presenter:  Lea Hofer, UCL Impartial Chair

Guests: Daniel Angus and Jennifer Powers

Producer and editor: Research Podcasts

Music: The Investigation by Pixabay

Artwork:  Mayuko Yamaguchi, UCL undergraduate student

 

Further reading and resources 

 

Demystifying the Teen Social Media ban resources from QUT Digital Media Research Centre.

Dezuanni, M. et al (2023) “Digital Child Working Paper 2023-11, Manifesto for a Better Children’s Internet”, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Queensland University of Technology.

Haidt, J., (2024) The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. 

Unplugged Coalition, unites people and organizations committed to protecting childhood from addictive technology. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Dr Melanie Garson

Melanie has been teaching on international conflict resolution and international security at UCL since 2010. She provides practical insights and thought leadership for policymakers across the full spectrum of cyber policy, tech geopolitics, and defence innovation challenges. Melanie is an accredited mediator and regularly provides commentary on geopolitics and tech in podcasts, webinars and at major media outlets including Bloomberg, BBC, Sky, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, France 24, and DeutscheWelle.

Guest

Daniel Angus

Professor of Digital Communication and Director of the QUT Digital Media Research Centre. Cyclist, beer brewer, nerd, community advocate.

Guest

Jennifer Powers

Founder & Director of the Unplugged Coalition. Former Special Adviser to PM on Business, Regulation and Energy Policy.

What is The Bridge: a Disagreeing Well podcast?

The Bridge: a Disagreeing Well podcast from University College London and Students' Union UCL tackles some of the most hotly debated issues of our time and provides practical techniques to bridge the divide between conflicting views. Each episode, our student hosts Lea Hofer and Tara Constantine, along with expert UCL mediator Dr. Melanie Garson, dive into a polarising question with informed and passionate guests with contrasting views. Tune in to better understand these critical debates, and equip yourself with the skills to have more meaningful conversations. Find out more at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/about/the-bridge

DW 1.1 Social Media Final
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Social media ban, children, harmful impact, addiction, mental health, digital media, research, evidence, parental concerns, technology regulation, childhood experience, agency, communication, anxiety.
SPEAKERS
Melanie Garson, Lea Hofer, Jennifer Powers, Daniel Angus

Lea Hofer 00:04
Hello and welcome to The Bridge; A Disagreeing Well podcast from University College London that tackles some of the most hotly debated issues of our time and provides us with the tools and techniques we need to disagree better about them. Communicating effectively with people whose views are different from ours is hard, but there's never been a more important time to do just that. But how can we have more fruitful conversations that navigate rather than end in conflict? This is the question our podcast is seeking to answer. I'm Lea Hofer, a student at UCL, and your host for today's episode in which we're asking the question, is a blanket social media ban for children the best way to mitigate its harmful impact?

Daniel Angus 00:52
The ban is a bit of a blunt instrument, and it won't actually go far enough in terms of addressing the root causes of many of the issues that are at the heart of this.

Jennifer Powers 01:02
Parents increasingly see the devastation to childhood itself from widespread use and addiction to social media, and they're calling for politicians and I guess, the rest of society to catch up with where we are. Enough with this experiment on our children.

Lea Hofer 01:28
Joining us to discuss this are Professor Daniel Angus from the Queensland University of Technology, and Jennifer Powers, founder of the Unplugged Coalition. But before we bring in our guests, I'd like to introduce you to Dr Melanie Garson, also from UCL, our resident expert mediator, who teaches mediation and negotiation techniques. So Melanie, disagreeing well isn't just about changing people's minds. So what will you be looking to get from the discussion today?

Melanie Garson 01:55
Disagreement is not the problem, and disagreement actually can be constructive, but we seem to have lost the art of managing disagreement and making space to cooperate, even if we disagree strongly. So today, what we'll be looking for, is seeing how people that may see the world differently can at least make space for their point of view to be heard and to sit alongside the views of other people, and before we go into that, Lea, do you have any thoughts of how you think it might play out today?

Lea Hofer 02:30
I'm particularly curious about how our guests will try and stay curious about each other's opinions, and how you will come into this mix and help them navigate it better.

Melanie Garson 02:43
I hope to stand by the mediators first rule, which is, never make anything worse.

Lea Hofer 02:50
Okay, so now it's time to bring in our guests and get the discussion going. Dan, the question we're asking today is, is a blanket social media ban for children the best way to mitigate its harmful impacts. Can you kick us off by telling us your position on that question please?

Daniel Angus 03:06
Sure thing. So yeah, thank you so much for staging this, and I think it's a really important conversation we should be having. The research centre that I lead, the Digital Media Research Centre, we've made many submissions, we've done much research over many years into all aspects of digital media and society, and we see many of the ways in which digital media both empowers and supports people in their everyday life, and we often also deal with a lot of the negative impacts of that. And so a lot of the research we do in the centre deals with a variety of harms, risks and such. And so we're often making recommendations to government, to technology platforms themselves, and trying to lobby them to make better those services. And so with the ban, we have formed a view that a ban is a bit of a blunt instrument, and it won't actually go far enough in terms of addressing the root causes of many of the issues that are at the heart of this. But if we're concerned about things, for example, people are concerned about bullying, or people are concerned about body image, or people are concerned about the addictive nature of some of these technologies, a ban is not something that as an instrument available to us in terms of the range of policies that we have available is necessarily going to address all of those things. And in some cases, research suggests that it might actually exacerbate some of these issues, and there is good evidence to suggest why that is the case, because of previous examples. So we are not trying to downplay the issue of harms, that is not something that we would ever do. And in many of our submissions, we make very clear the ways and the changes that we want to see happen. We make clear the voice of the youth that we speak to and the changes they want to see happen to their technology. But I want to make it very clear that while the ban may see seem appealing to some, as a policy solution it's not something that the evidence that we have available to us and the global evidence suggests is going to have the actual intended outcomes that many advocates for the ban might suspect it would have.

Lea Hofer 05:07
Before I ask Jennifer the same question, could you just say a little more about how you have come to the conclusion that a ban is, as you describe it, this blunt instrument that may do more harm than good.

Daniel Angus 05:18
Through decades of research. I mean, this is, this is something that when we're talking about research into digital media, we canvas many, many disciplinary views. My own background, I'm a computer scientist, I have colleagues who from psychology backgrounds, we have colleagues as experts in media economies, in policy and regulation, in law. And one of the things that's wonderful and about the 120 strong member center that I have the fortune of leading right now, is that we get to draw on all of those expertise collectively to come up with solutions that we think are empowering for people in terms of their daily lives, are pragmatic and are measured. And this research is situated, you know, we're talking about people that spend their days speaking with hundreds upon thousands of families of youth, of looking in not just in urban context, but in rural areas, across different racial and cultural identities, to make sure that the research we're doing speaks not just to one sector of society, but is actually looking at this in a fulsome and collective way. So that's the kind of work that I'm, you know, most interested in, in kind of drawing on. And of course, that work is grounded in evidence, and it's also grounded in community. So these are, you know, this is work that is absolutely speaking with those on the ground who are impacted by these technologies and trying to make that work and put pressure, obviously, on any entity, whether it's government, whether it's industry, to make change for better, to make our world a better place.

Lea Hofer 06:55
Okay, thank you for that then. Let's hear now from Jennifer, can you tell us your position on the question of whether a blanket social media ban for children is the best way to mitigate its harmful impacts.

Jennifer Powers 07:07
Hi, Lea, thanks for having me on. I'm really excited to get into the detail on this and have the debate with Dan. A ban on social media for under 16 in the way that Australia is proposing is not sufficient to protect our children. Because I'm going to agree that that's not a magic bullet, and I don't think anyone who works on child welfare or is concerned about the mental health impacts and addictive nature of social media would claim that a ban on social media for under 16 is going to solve all the problems. I think what we're talking about here is the multifaceted impact that addictive by design social media platforms and the devices that our children consume them via, have on our kids. And when we talk about evidence, well, the evidence is increasingly in and it's it's pretty compelling. Many of our listeners may have read The Anxious Generation by Dr Jonathan Haidt , where all this research is laid out. Of course, there are some academics who will pursue their own lines of inquiry, but as Professor Haidt says, unless and until someone somewhere comes up with an alternative theory which is more compelling that explains why this damage is happening to all of our children around the world to pretty much the same extent over pretty much the same timeframe, which coincides with the widespread use of smartphones, internet enabled tablets and social media platforms. Well, then we're all ears, but in the meantime, is very much the most compelling theory. And whilst some may push back and say causation hasn't been proven and that it's all correlation. When we look and take a common sense view of the evidence that's out there, we can draw our own conclusions, and increasingly, children, parents and educators are drawing the conclusion that social media and access via devices is incredibly harmful for our kids.

Lea Hofer 09:18
Can you tell us a bit more about how you came to hold that position.

Jennifer Powers 09:22
Here in the UK, there is a massive backlash, as there is in many, many countries around the world. So I joined the Smartphone Free Childhood movement in the first week it was founded. In February 2024 two mums started a WhatsApp group to support each other in not giving their nine year old daughters smartphones, and they put that Whatsapp group on Instagram, and the post went viral. And there were 10,000 parents who joined in the first 48 hours, and now there are more than 350,000 parents across the country who support and engage with the movement in some way, we know that children with high smartphone use and social media consumption are twice as likely to be anxious and three times as likely to be clinically depressed. We know there's huge increases in cyber bullying and self harm, and we know the opportunity cost to our kids of spending huge amounts of time online scrolling as opposed to having rich real world experiences. I think we need to regulate the devices themselves. Smartphones and internet enabled tablets are devices for adults. I think we need to make sure that our schools are free of smartphones and access to social media, and I think we need to reflect on the role of technology in the classroom and the role of technology in our children's lives. Parents increasingly see the devastation to childhood itself from widespread use and addiction to social media, and are stepping up, and they're calling for politicians and I guess the rest of society to catch up with where we are, which is saying enough, enough with this experiment on our children, we make rules all the time about what's safe for our children and how to protect them, and I do think this is the challenge of our time to find out where those boundaries are around technology and our kids. I feel it very personally, I feel it in the stories that the parents tell me when they WhatsApp me and when I give my talks, and they come up to me afterwards in tears, in terms of the impact that that access has had, and of course, from the evidence that I've spent the last 18 months immersed in.

Lea Hofer 11:35
Well, thank you so much for all these insights into both of your perspectives. You already started the discussion from my point of view. So I think Melanie, it's time for you to guide us through the next bit of this discussion.

Melanie Garson 11:48
Thank you both for sharing in such detail your sort of your positions and how you've come today. Jenny, you already said that you heard some of what Dan was saying in regards to you would agree that Australian band might not be sufficient, but went further. But I want to turn to Dan and think about, Dan. What was there with that you heard from Jenny that resonated with you the most on this issue? What

Daniel Angus 12:19
I hear the most in this is anxiety, but it's not in the way that, and look, I'm not going to go here and try and take apart Jonathan hates book. He is not an expert in this area, he sells a lot of books, he's done this for his career. But I'm going to put that to one side in service of what I think is much more fertile ground for conversation. If he's right about anything, he's right about the title The Anxious Generation, but not in the way that I think you might consider it. The anxiety here is actually anxiety in parenting. And what's being sold here is a textbook example, and there's, there's many colleagues of mine who've already talked about this in the Australian context of what is well known as a moral panic. And the issue with a moral panic when it when it sets in, is that these moral panics lead us into positions where we tend to overblow and then overstate certain things and we conflate and then, and then, it basically creates a set of conditions that we stop thinking more rationally, more pragmatically about real solutions to that. And so if Jonathan hates on the money of anything, it's The Anxious Generation title, but it's yeah, as I said, it's not the children who are the anxious ones, it's the parents. Because in when we look here in Australia, the kinds of people that are most supportive of the ban, they are ones who are deeply, deeply anxious about the childhoods that their children are experiencing. I mean, we're talking a little bit before we started the recording, about the kind of massive weather event that's happening in Australia, and we're seeing this with climate change, more and more of these patterns of extreme climate change and extreme weather events. And we know that our children are growing up in a world that is increasingly uncertain, and we as their parents have a fear for their future, politically, environmentally, you know, the fact is that in Australia, they're probably not going to be able to purchase a home, they're not going to have a stable job, whether they're even going to have a planet that's livable, right? These are palpable fears, and so that anxiety is real. And when I hear this, and I hear advocates for this, what I'm hearing is actually a projection of that anxiety. And so that's the thing is that, like technology, in some ways, becomes a bit of a catch all for a greater set of anxieties, a loss of childhood. When you talk and we hear about these conversations, what's conjuring up in our minds is like this nostalgia for a particular childhood that we might have experienced, you know, kids running carefree in their neighborhoods. You know, here in Australia, you know, playing cricket in the street and such. And we feel like that's a childhood that's not available for our children. When we think about smartphones, just as a technology by itself, let's also think about home landline phones. And so the case here is, and I've done some digging on the stats for the UK here as well. Go back to 1990, even into like about 2000, and home phones had about a 93%-95% penetration in a home. So you pretty much guaranteed most homes had a landline phone. And if you're a kid in that era, you're probably using that landline phone to connect and call your friends. Fast forward to today, and far less, less than half of those homes have a landline phone. And when you actually break down the statistics and you look at younger families, it's even less than that. And so basically, what we've done as a society is essentially reconfigure society in a way. And so now we have kids in an environment where we've removed pretty much all their means of communication, unless we are going to lend them a device that we own and that is logged in with all of our ID and all of our contact details, or we provide them with some of the means of communication.

Melanie Garson 15:58
There's a lot there to take in, and I appreciate that. So coming to this structural change, I want to, just want to take you to an exercise in a minute so before, but before I do that, Jenny do you think there's anything to that, you talk to a lot of parents that this is about anxious parents, many of whom are together, perhaps in a bunker of anxiety together about this issue.

Jennifer Powers 16:26
The first was just at the end there, Dan came up with the classic straw man of this argument. The first one earlier was that, you know that a ban won't solve everything. Well, of course not. The second one he raised was, poor children won't be able to communicate because no one has landlines anymore has landlines anymore. This is not an anti phone campaign, this is not an anti communication movement. Very happy for every and all child to be able to call and even to text. There's a huge number of devices out there where children can use safely, that don't have access to the internet or have very, very closed down access. I just want to make sure that we're not ascribing to me beliefs which I, nor no one, anyone in the in the movement, have, which is that children shouldn't have and don't have the capability to communicate. There is a trend for people to either reinstall their landline or indeed use a simple brick phone as their home phone, and there are most children do have a phone of some description at some age. We're talking specifically about internet enabled phones. That would be my first point, and that's not even in terms of the main arguments that Dan was making, that was just to correct something. In terms of his main argument about moral panic, I think it's absolutely fascinating, I think it's fascinating as a tactic to sort of belittle the genuine concerns that parents and educators and many academics have about the impact of addictive technology on children. I don't think this is about a few middle class parents who are, you know, doubting the choices they've made. I don't think it would have caught fire around the world in the way that it has. I don't think when we have the surveys in the UK of who supports tougher stance, tougher regulation towards social media and smartphones, it cuts across socio-economic class. So this idea that it's only middle class parents who care about the negative impact on mental health, that care about the cyber bullying of their kids, that care about the lower educational attainment if children are spending a lot of time online, I think that is a hugely prejudicial comment, to say that parents that are not middle class don't care about their children to the same extent and want the best for their kids. All parents are ambitious for their children. All parents want the best that's not driven from moral panic, that's driven not just from the evidence, but from the reality we see of children at a bus stop together, friends ignoring each other and staring at a phone, not talking to each other. That's the reality of a reception year class where children don't have speech and language skills, and the referrals to the NHS are absolutely off the charts because those children haven't been spoken to in the way that babies and toddlers have. So I think it's really important that we push back on this moral panic argument. It is incredibly natural that as new technologies come in, we as a society, decide where those lines are, what is safe. And so it's not nostalgic to say, okay, we've had this addictive technology around for 13-14-15 years in the hands of our children, and we can see it has a really negative impact. And so we're going to set some boundaries, individually, as parents, as families, as communities and as society.

Melanie Garson 19:44
You both talked about childhood experience, and you've both, you know, shared that you have a common interest in looking at the future world for children. I want to sort of, sort of take a little bit of an exercise. So one of the things that can happen, particularly when we're working around people who share similar positions to where we are, is we create a set of rules around our thinking, and that often echoes in the WhatsApp groups and in the talks that we give. So perhaps we could just take a minute to sort of step back. Let's sort of zoom out and let's look at the problem with, you know, as if we're standing on the top of a mountain, and it's all sitting in front of us, and standing at the top of the mountain and thinking about, what is it we're trying to achieve here? What is it you're trying to achieve? What would the good look like, if we're going to architect the future, what does that picture look like? What does the child look like at the end of that picture? And I'm going to come to Dan to ask you, sort of, what does that picture look like to you? So just to make sure, I hear what you say, you're looking for a world where children have access to a children created, or children co-created, or co-curated internet system that they can engage with. Can I just push a little bit, why is it important they engage with the internet at all for you?

Daniel Angus 21:05
That's fantastic. And in fact, I don't have to think too hard, because many of the researchers in my center have already done this thinking for us. And so I'll draw on work from Michael Dezuanni and Alicia Rodriguez, they have a vision here called the children's internet. And so the idea here, it stems from the internet as we know it was never designed with children in mind. It was designed as a tool, essentially, for adults. And as it's grown, as it's emerged as a force in our world, we know that many of the risks and things that I think we share this in common, Jennifer, you and I. That there are many things on the internet that absolutely I do not want children experiencing right and that is a shared view, and there's no controversy there. And so the idea of the children's internet is it forces us to reckon with if we were to start again. And if we were to design the internet today with children in mind, knowing that they are active participants, they're going to be curious about this technology. It's part of their world. How would we go about redesigning that? And there's a manifesto, you can find it online, manifesto for the children's internet that outlines this. And this is work that's being done across four different countries. We're talking about focus groups with children themselves to take their ideas and and put them forth. And the children themselves say that they want more control. They want to be able to make that space in their image. They want to be able to do things that are creative, that are playful. They want agency in that space. And those are the kinds of principles I think that I would like to see guiding this conversation. And one of the frustrations I have here in Australia is that we've heard a lot from the adults, and you know, a lot of this is kind of overriding those voices in terms of those who are on the ground and actually are most impacted by this, and to give them a say in in the future of that, and how they want to see this be part of their lives. So that's a vision. Vision I have is one of empowerment, of trust as well, in trusting that next generation that, you know, it's their world that that we're building, and to actually trust them, to give them a seat at the table, because when we have conversations with them, we learn an awful amount right about the things that are important in their world, the things that we might be overlooking when we do our own work and advocacy. Yeah. I mean, look, the internet is a foundational technology in our world, for good or bad. You can just, you cannot stuff genies back into bottles, and we need empowered citizens who have got hands on the wheel that can understand that, can steer that in the right direction. Billions across the world are now connected to the internet every day. It is a foundational technology, and so we need to find a way for our children to play a role in that and have a positive experience of that, rather than continuing to allow it just to evolve as it is, without their involvement at all, which I would argue, and much of the research argues, is leading to these poorer outcomes. So the fact that they haven't been given a voice, and they're not giving the agency they need.

Melanie Garson 24:40
I just want to come to Jenny, would you agree with Dan that, you know, the internet is a foundational part of people's lives, and there can be a pathway to sort of co-create the internet as a better space for children. Would that be as part as if you were standing in the image and looking at how your child interacts with technology, something that you could see as a pathway?

Jennifer Powers 25:13
I'm not sure I buy into that vision entirely. Of a lot of buzzwords have been thrown about about giving children agency and trusting them to make the right decisions. If you've got an eight or a ten or a twleve year old and they are, by definition, incredibly vulnerable. They're young, they're immature, and you're putting them against the smartest tech bosses in the world and AI and tech platforms, and you're telling them that they need to demonstrate agency and act responsibly and feel empowered. I think that's a really tragic and horrific thing to ask of any child when it's so weighted against them, and it will have such profoundly negative consequences. Again, the movement and the work that I do is not anti tech, it's not anti internet. You know, we started this conversation, which was, do we think there should be a ban for social media for under 16? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely there should. And Dan can talk about all foundational internet is, and that's fine, but we're here to talk about social media for under 16. And I say no, I say smartphones, no, and I say internet, I would rather than this idea that we can purify the internet and we could have this little safe corner. I think that's pie in the sky fantasy. I mean, you can make it a bit safer, you can have filters, you can try to get rid of the pornography, and all that should be done. But it's like saying we could make the world perfectly safe, and we know that can't happen either, because there's bad people in there doing bad things. So the idea that we can kind of fence off a bit of the internet, and you know, if Harry and Imogen help us and tell us what would make it good, that it will be this really safe playpen where all the children can be, I think is naive. I also think that it really doesn't give the true voice of the children, because all the surveys that I see say that older teens and 20 somethings desperately wish they'd grown up in a time without social media access, and they would never want that for their kids. So this whole idea that kids are crying out for, you know, to live in this digital playpen, you know, they may, but thankfully, there are adults who care about them and love them and know that it's not good for them and are willing to stand up for them. I want a world where children are not given internet enabled devices unsupervised until they are 14-15, or 16 years old. And I want us to fundamentally understand something which, sadly, too many researchers don't, which is the difference between tech as a creative tool, which is wonderful, and children should be taught how to use technology as a tool, versus technology as something to consume, and social media and group chat are the massive, massive ways that the tech companies and society in general get our children to consume. And so I say no to that, I say no, let's put up a hard wall around the devices, around social media, around unsupervised internet access, wherever that may be, in homes, in schools, in other settings.

Lea Hofer 28:02
Dan just wondering, is there anything you take away from all this?

Daniel Angus 28:06
One thing I take is the difficulty, particularly when it comes to communicating complex science. I mean, we've been here previously with other kinds of arguments. One pervasive one is around filter bubbles and echo chambers, which the bulk of the research since that first idea was introduced has refuted those as ideas, that weight of evidence doesn't stack it up. And we will look at this moment, I think that we're about to embark on a very, very bold experiment globally, perhaps in terms of, you know, trying to ban this technology, and we're about to see what the impact of that is. My biggest concern is that we may not actually see perhaps some of the more negative impacts of that, that that may go unreported, and that there could be real harms that happen from this. So to turn it on its head a little bit, you know, one might talk about the, you know, technology companies experimenting on children in this moment, my concern is that we're about to see a mass scale experiment on children, but not necessarily in a good way, and not in a way that we have a clear idea about the outcome of that and the unintended consequences of what happens when children still want to use those technologies, but do it in private, away from parents. Do not discuss that use, go to less regulated and less safe spaces, and so I have a real concern in this moment reflecting on what is about to happen, particularly here in Australia.

Lea Hofer 29:32
And you, Jenny?

Jennifer Powers 29:32
I've really enjoyed road testing some of my arguments against a sort of worthy debating opponent, because a lot of the conversations I have are with parents who are really struggling to navigate this space where their children are so drawn into the dopamine inducing video games, or, you know, they're spending 3, 5, 8 hours a day on their smartphones. You know, kind of on addicted by design platforms, and so they're really struggling, and they're looking to feel that solidarity, and they're looking for advice and support to kind of help their kids. And so for me, it's been a really positive experience to kind of hear from the other side, because I don't do that as much as I hear from people who perhaps agree with me. So I think that's been useful. I've been pretty taken aback by some of the arguments on the other side. You know that last one about, you know, that there may be huge dis-benefits to keeping children off addictive technology and keeping them safe I think is quite a claim. I feel like just because you can't keep someone 100% safe, or you can't keep 100% of children safe, 100% of the time, doesn't mean you don't try. And so, of course, there might be a child who has unsupervised access to social media or the internet, yeah, but we're trying to limit that. We're trying to give children their childhood. And at the end of the day, when we talk about this whole rights and this whole empowerment and agency, you know what? What children deserve, they deserve a childhood, they deserve to be safe and happy. And they can learn the skills in the real world they need, and they can learn about tech as a tool under supervision. And that way, they'll grow up to be happy and healthy adults. And they'll also be able to engage productively in the digital world, as opposed to the reverse. So I really enjoyed it, thank you very much for the invitation, and I've taken a lot away from it. And so I just want to thank Dr Melanie for her excellent mediation skills, and to Lea for hosting, and to Dan for taking part.

Daniel Angus 31:37
Thanks Jenny,

Lea Hofer 31:39
Daniel Angus and Jennifer Powers, thank you very much. So Melanie, time now for you and I to reflect on what we've heard and learned today. Can you explain a bit about the technique you were using there, how it played out, and any other reflections or tips you have for our listeners?

Melanie Garson 31:55
Well, thank you, Lea, and it was definitely an interesting conversation to say the least. The technique I was trying to bring into play was a technique that we use is a sort of, can you step back, sometimes it's viewed as sort of standing on a mountain and looking at the problem, and being able to see the whole ecosystem of the problem. And the reason to do that is to in this instance, to try and get a sense of what are both of them trying to change in the end, were they both trying to look at creating better childhood experiences? So they were trying to get to the same place and to perhaps open up and see where there's a range of different pathways to do that. So imagine standing very high up, and suddenly you see all the roads and where roads actually cross. And was there possibly spaces to do that? So then we heard about different ideas, perhaps a children's internet, and we got a little bit of softening to say, well I'm not sure, they shouldn't have social media, but it should be supervised social media. And I think given a little bit of time, could have moved that forward. The other side of that, though, was there were some real sticking points. And the sticking points was a usual one, and I think wonder we will see and explore for in the future, is the numbers and information and evidence and what you're relying on that, and what the tension can be as to the sources of that. And the other thing of a breakup, and the word actually came up anxiety. And the interesting thing of the impact of emotion, and where anxiety can sometimes actually inhibit creativity. And the more emotional we get, sometimes we retreat from being able to creatively think with another person. So those were my takeaways, and I think we will explore these and further conversations a little bit more. But what did you take away?

Lea Hofer 33:50
So I find these all very interesting reflections on your end, certainly a few things that I didn't pick up on myself. So I think this technique is something that I will definitely try out myself in my own discussions to try and find this common ground or this common goal to work on together in different ways. I personally found it really interesting how our two guests, they drew on different aspects of their own engagement with the topic to argue from their point of view. And I noticed particularly that when it got a bit emotional, that they were focusing more on their own arguments compared to listening to each other. So I could sense that there were these differences. And within their arguments, I found this one topic particularly interesting, the two of them thinking about responsibility and agency in different ways, and what that means in looking after their children in the online space.

Melanie Garson 34:48
Think that's super interesting. And I think maybe we also have to think about, yeah, we were also talking about people two very different countries, and perhaps very two different approaches, like culturally from maybe just even how they view parenting, and which was something, you know, we could have dug into a little bit more, but their overall philosophies of parenting are and how this played into it. So lot to unpack there, but perhaps the conversation for another day, an even longer one.

Lea Hofer 35:19
Definitely, and I'll be super excited about listening back to this episode and maybe try and trace your reflections. Thank you to Professor Daniel Angus, Jennifer Powers and Dr Melanie Garson, and thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the discussion and picked up some tips for disagreeing well. If you have a comment or a question on anything you've heard, please drop us a line at [e-mail]. You can find out more about UCL's Disagreeing Well campaign on the UCL website, or follow us on LinkedIn and bluesky using #UCLDisagreeingWell. Please do subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts to access earlier and forthcoming episodes. Final thanks to Students' Union UCL and the UCL Podcast Team. This is a Research Podcasts production.