Council Member Wong asks senators about screen time and school violence connection

Yes, a question for both senators.

What I noticed is that school violence has been

uptaking is happening more and more and the students involved are getting younger and younger either with guns or knives.

This morning we have a mother bringing the kids to school and he was stabbed.

Well my question is do you agree that limiting or reducing screen time would

would relieve or would alleviate this problem?

Or can you want to talk about the connection between screen time and violence, school violence in kids?

You know, it's possible.

I mean, there were studies early on that people talked about whether kids exposed to violent movies, for example, made them more violent.

I don't think they really found a connection there.

The reality is, however, that it goes to that social-emotional issue, right?

Kids who can't communicate or who are frustrated and angry because they don't have relationships, and they don't know they don't have relationships, right?

They're not very good monitors of their own social-emotional development necessarily, and may be more likely to do that.

The other thing, especially with young people,

is it's a way to have bragging rights in some cases, right?

You would see kids who carry a knife to school because it made them cool.

You see girls who feel more safe because their boyfriend has a gun, when in fact we know they are much less safe, that it's five times more likely they will be shot by the boyfriend they think is going to protect them, right?

And so part of that is also...

Teaching kids how to resolve issues like alternate dispute resolution for problem solving in schools so that they don't pick up a knife, they don't pick up a gun, they don't take that out.

So we really need to do a lot of work on social-emotional development and problem solving with kids.

And I think it's less likely that that will happen.

Now, to the extent that they get over-focused on screens and are having relationships with chatbots or with these chat groups and what have you, that can certainly lead to social isolation.

And a lack of effective problem-solving skills.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, you wanted to add to it?

No, I would just say I think that this is really what a lot of, like Professor Haidt at NYU has talked about, that we've replaced childhood play with phone play.

And as a result, students and young people don't learn how to navigate conflict and tension and how to form interpersonal relationships and how to see that the joke that the council member made about Hunter was a joke and was not an insult.

But if he had posted it online, maybe the assembly member would have seen it and said, oh, that was an insult to me.

When students, when young people are only

spending their social development through a device, and they're building social relationships through a device, and they're not developing that ability to navigate the playground and to navigate real-life tension and real-life awkwardness and real-life social engagement.

It's very easy to see how small slights online can become very big problems in real life that result in some of the violence we're seeing or the violent actions we're seeing.

It's not the only contributing factor, but it certainly is a factor.

And I think that's one of the reasons why over the last couple of years I have focused so much of my legislative work around the harms that social media has had on young kids'mental development, what the role of these algorithms has had

on their cognitive development, on their social and emotional growth.

And the impact that big tech has had on these young kids'lives.

And then you're seeing this play out and manifest itself in real life.

Okay, thank you, Senators.

Thank you.

Cheers.

One thing I might also add about screen stuff is that, you know, tone of voice is important and matters in communications.

But, you know, the other thing that I think is happening here is social media.

We know if kids are using social media and they're on screens more, they are greater likely to developing anxiety and depression.

And also that they're not learning how to communicate with each other.

And so it's this issue of focusing on the screens and not developing friends.

So we go back to zero to three.

And if you remember in administration or two or three ago, there was a real focus on trying to teach kids to read in 4K, right?

They weren't even in K yet at that point.

And in fact, there are some kids who are very precocious that can learn to read at four.

But really, zero to three, it's really social-emotional development.

Kids need to learn to play.

And if you're reading the literature, there is more attention now to what children learn.

They learn by playing, and they're learning a lot of things, including ordering their world, but also their relationships with others.

And how to play and how to follow rules and all of those things are really the kinds of things we need to be focusing on with young children, right?

And not exposing them necessarily to try and put pressure on them to read.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senators.

Thank you, Chairs.