Prof Pete Etchells
@PeteEtchells
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Professor of Psychology and Science Communication | Author of Lost In A Good Game (2019) and Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (2024)
Bristol
Joined January 2009
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“Eye-wateringly relevant” -
@garwboy
“A realistic tonic to the doom and gloom”- New Scientist
“It’s not for children, it’s for adults because it’s boring” - my 4 year old daughter
My new book, about the real science of screen time, is out now:
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Take a look at this headline. This is based on an unpublished conference abstract (being presented today at an endocrinology meeting) of a study on rats.
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The research finds nothing of the sort. They exposed immature rats to 6/12 hrs of intense blue light. There is nothing remotely relevant to screens or childhood puberty in this study.
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This paper is not about phone-based childhoods. It’s ostensibly about internet use (although it confuses the internet and gaming throughout). Literally everything we do changes the way our brains “wire up”, so I’m not sure how that’s a useful thing to say.
There are now multiple studies showing that a heavily phone-based childhood changes the way the adolescent brain wires up, in many ways including cognitive control and reward valuation. Here's a review of them:
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I keep seeing this paper doing the rounds, and a lot of people are taking it as evidence to support smartphone bans. But there's something about it that I can't quite get my head around. More than half of the schools in the study didn't actually ban smartphones...
Banning
#smartphones
in over 400 schools led to:
-decreased psychological symptoms among girls by 29%
-decreased bullying by boys and girls by 43%
-increased GPA among girls by .08 SDs
Effects were larger for girls from low SES families
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I’ve written a new book. It’s about the messy science of screen time, our relationship with digital tech, and how we can make that healthier and better. Excited to be able to share the cover with you! And you can preorder here:
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Here we go again. This headline is based on a non-peer-reviewed opinion piece that relies on seven references, four of which are news articles. Two of the other three citations predate smart voice tech. What are we doing here?
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@StokesNeuro
I hope you find peace in these days Mark. You’re a good man, and that’s the best thing we can aspire to. Godspeed.
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@Researchfish
Just to be clear, by “revisiting policies and procedures” this leads me to assume that it was a current part of your playbook to bully academics on twitter by threatening to report them to their funders?
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Five big questions about screen time, answered:
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If you’ve lost your faith in humanity (or at least in twitter interactions), read the replies to Mark’s tweet here. Good people create amazing things, even in the darkest of hours.
Hi folks, I’m afraid it’s time for me to say goodbye. Not just leaving Twitter, but the whole show. I’ve been battling cancer last 2 years, but now only have a few days left now. Thank you wonderful people, I leave this crazy world with much love in my heart ❤️
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SHAFT
WHO ends COVID emergency but warns threat is not over
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One of the things that frustrates me about the current debate around social media/smartphones/mental health is that it's very often framed as "alarmist who wants action NOW" vs "out-of-touch critic who only cares about 'data' & wants to wait for the evidence". This is incorrect.
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"The brain of a gamer is exactly the same as that of a heroin addict". Reprehensible nonsense in Australian parliament here, which is very disappointing to see.
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I’m in the Guardian today (both print and online!). Let’s start taking video games with the seriousness they deserve:
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One argument that keeps coming up re: smartphone/social media bans is that we need solutions *now*. It’s no good saying “we need better evidence”, b/c there’s an urgent issue that can’t afford to wait for research to catch up. Let me tell you a story about the CRASH trial though.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is absolutely no point in talking about smartphone bans if you’re not talking about building digital literacy, resiliency and empathy skills. They will do nothing useful alone.
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You are not addicted to your smartphone.
How to finally break free from your smartphone addiction
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You’re going to see a lot of doom and gloom rhetoric about screens and social media this week
My view is that things aren’t anywhere near as bad as some people make out to be, but regardless of what I or anyone else thinks… >>>
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Really disappointed in this, throwing out lots of tired old tropes about digital tech and video games. Screen addiction is not a thing.
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I imagine that when you say 'smartphone ban', most people would assume this meant (a) no phones on school premises, or (b) phones locked away at the start of the day. But if you look at Figure 2, for most schools, ban was defined as 'silent mode during class'
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Sensible stuff from Keir Starmer here. Smartphone bans for children are an overly simplistic solution that won’t do the thing everyone wants them to do:
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Non-published, non-reviewed pilot research showing BAD TECH THING presented at non-academic conference? National news headlines!
Pre-registered, reviewed, published research showing COMPLEX TECH THING NOT BAD IN THE WAY YOU THINK? Pass.
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So I’ve written a new book. It’s about screens, our relationship with them, and why we often struggle to talk about that in a sensible way. Still working on a better title for it, but going thru edits atm, and as nervous as I am about it, it… feels like it’s coming together?
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It's finally here! It's publication day for Unlocked, and I'm so excited to share this book with you. It's been a long time in the making, and I hope it helps to reassure and empower readers to make positive changes with their technology habits.
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Oh mate, no. They’re not.
Are brain scans the next frontier in learning? A future where MRI scans of students’ brains, on a limited scale, could aid curriculum development for all students may be possible, say researchers
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Coincidences can be seductive but it's worth being wary of them in the context of longitudinal research. Here's a silly e.g.: I've added in the iPhone launch to this graph from the BBC today. It suggests a compelling link, but one that distracts from the actual underlying issues
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Me: okay I really need to have a productive writing afternoon now.
Brain: or, and just hear me out for a sec, OR we could sit here, NOT write anything, and paralyse ourselves with anxiety! whaddya think?
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Still staggering that some academics came out of the blocks defending this article. It took all of two minutes of thinking and googling to see that there were some extremely serious concerns.
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The sheer irony of bemoaning the fact that kids these days are losing their critical thinking skills, while at the same time applying none whatsoever yourself.
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This is an excellent, level-headed overview of the difficulties of banning social media for kids, by one of the best researchers in the area:
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That suggests to me that whatever is having an effect on those outcomes is more complicated than phone ban alone. I don't really know what the answer is there. And I'm not trashing the paper - I think it's a cool analysis! But it's not enough to base policy on.
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This is an interesting look at past Surgeon General tech warnings. I find the newspaper headlines about Pac-Man fascinating - they seem ridiculous now, but replace 'Pac-Man' with 'smartphone'...
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Just a gentle reminder that there are lots of good scientists doing work that suggests that it isn’t just the phones. If you’re worried about some of the claims about the links to MH, I’ve tried to summarise the research & provide some reassurance here:
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Gamers! My PhD student is looking for participants to answer a short series of questionnaires about motivations to play games:
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@Mathieunorry
I mean I do research on this stuff and I’m writing a book about what the science actually says but ok
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“If we want to know why many teens choose of their own free will to spend 10 or 20 hours a week playing games, rather than pathologising them, we ought to look around us.” 👏👏👏
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“NFT metaverse-based healthcare”, give me strength
Oh wow. You have to watch these two videos. NFT metaverse-based healthcare providing access to “well known social media doctors”. I’m literally hitting every single box on my web3 + medical nonsense bingo card
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This is a particularly poor take from the Guardian. It’s not research, it’s a glorified opinion piece from someone with no prior research expertise in the area.
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The Surgeon General's suggestion that social media should come w/ a 'health warning label', IMO, sets a dangerous precedent, and is a good reminder that the urgency of wanting to "do something now" makes evidence-based approaches all the more important.
One argument that keeps coming up re: smartphone/social media bans is that we need solutions *now*. It’s no good saying “we need better evidence”, b/c there’s an urgent issue that can’t afford to wait for research to catch up. Let me tell you a story about the CRASH trial though.
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Has social media ruined a generation? (No):
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“Throughout the history of science… the public’s trust in science has been undermined when scientists with large public platforms have failed to state strongly enough that their pronouncements are based on science that remains in flux.” 👏👏👏
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Really excited to be giving a talk for a New Scientist Live event today. I’ll be laying out the case for rethinking digital “addiction”
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The best kind of post appeared this morning! It’s a real physical thing!
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This is going straight into my new module on science communication:
THREAD...on the 10 attributes that I am looking for in an explanation. And the 10 questions that help me try to deliver them each time that I’m communicating.
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@Mathieunorry
that's quite a broad-strokes claim to make that I don't think is easily born out by the evidence though.
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We’re all running around, panicking and wanting to do the right thing (ban social media, protect kids). At the same time, we’re all running around *refusing* to do the right thing, and figure out whether bans would work, or whether they would do more harm than good.
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This news has completely devastated me. It’s hard to explain just exactly how important the Foo Fighters have been in my life, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I saw Taylor’s incredible drum skills live. 50 is no age.
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When you stoke fears and anxieties, these are the sorts of draconian solutions that people cook up - 12 hour school days starting at 7am will fix absolutely nothing
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Today, the government has launched a new video games research framework, which I’ve had the privilege to be involved in moulding over the past couple of years:
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It’s not a fucking price cap if it keeps going up
BREAKING:
@Ofgem
says the energy price cap'll rise an avg 80% on 1 Oct, taking typical bills from £1,971/yr to £3,549/yr.
I’ll tweet on the new standing charge & unit rates ASAP, plus as it varies by region & use, once we've data, link to our new personalised price calc.
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This is a really important piece. It’s not about the phones - the problems children are facing are much more complex, and run much deeper:
I've written a piece about what's gone wrong for our children - we know they are unhappy - look around the streets you live on and you might get a clue why...
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Digging into this, it’s clear that suggestions for simplistic smartphone/social media bans for kids just won’t work. We need to improve digital literacy skills and training, and push the industry to socially responsible design:
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What this says to me is that we’ve got the public debate about screens desperately wrong. If people are only able to talk about their relationship with tech in addiction terms, we’re missing out a good chunk of what it can do for/to us.
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2017: “have smartphones destroyed a generation?”
2023: “smartphones and social media are destroying children’s mental health”
I didn’t think the headline was right then, and I still don’t now.
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Hague is wrong here, while we’re at it. The links between SM and MH are very much *not* clear.
Stop smartphones stealing kids’ childhoods. Links between social media use and mental ill health seem clear — but there are plenty of ways we can tackle this crisis. Read my latest
@thetimes
column here:
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Also, there's this Master's thesis, also on data from Norway using the Pupil Survey, which concludes no effect of phone bans on academic results/MH:
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Still beaming about this brilliant review from New Scientist. Unlocked is “a realistic tonic amid the doom and gloom”
Really nice review of m'friend
@PeteEtchells
' new book, which is released TOMORROW. It's a really timely book that looks at the "problem" of phones/screens though a lens of what you do with a screen, not what a screen is (archive link so you can read it)
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This is a really fascinating and thoughtful deep dive into how we might best conceptualise the relationship between SM use and mental health. It's complicated (we all knew this), but Craig really goes into considering *how* it's complicated here. Worth a read.
I believe that
@JonHaidt
’s central claim that social media (SM) is the primary cause of an international youth mental health crisis, especially among girls, is based on a flawed understanding of the underlying data generating process (DGP). In this thread, I’ll show you how.
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So nice to see the cats blooming at this time of year
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This isn't hidden away in the paper; the author actually looks at this, and the impact it has on the outcomes specified. And the answer there is weird: differing effects for 'lenient' vs 'strict' bans on educational outcomes, but not much for MH or bullying...
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Just a reminder that, in the midst of lots of scary talk about smartphone effects and whether we should ban them or not, I've got a book out that tries to cut through the hype/rhetoric, and provide more reassurances. You can get it via the links here:
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Sometimes I wonder if having kids has really changed me at all. Then on sunny days like this, I look out of the window and think "oh great, that will bleach the poo stains out of the baby grows" and then I don't wonder any more.
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In a space where it’s so often easy to play on fears, I think this article by
@gabyhinsliff
is brilliant. Really articulate about the issues facing kids, but written with thought and empathy. More like this please! (Also yes I am quite partial to potatoes)
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Looking for birthday presents for kiddo. He seems to like rocking horses. Found a rocking dinosaur! “Cool!”, I think…
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‘“Online” and “offline” are not two different places; what we teach to and learn about our kids will apply to how they handle themselves in every situation in this murky, bionic existence where digital and analogue are intertwined.‘
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Pitching a book, telling people you’re pitching a book, getting a book deal, writing a book
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Author copies of Unlocked arrived! Always a special thing to get in the post 😁
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8 weeks until my book comes out, and given the current state of public discourse around screens, wish it could be much sooner... If you want to read something more level-headed about what the science of screen time actually tells us you can pre-order here:
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I'll be on the BBC World Service tomorrow (not sure when), talking about the recent suggestions for a smartphone ban in France.
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Lots of problems with this study, but a major one for me is that there is no formal clinical definition of internet addiction, yet the language used in this paper suggests there is. Also conflates internet ‘addiction’ with gaming ‘addiction’.
NEW STUDY: Adolescents with internet addiction experience changes in the brain that could lead to other addictive behaviors and tendencies
Yet more findings in line with
@JonHaidt
's warnings in The Anxious Generation.
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Here’s the other thing that’s lodged in my mind from Ben’s talk: It wasn’t just the treatment that was killing ppl. It was that we weren’t humble enough to admit uncertainty, to hold our hands up & say “we don’t know if this thing does more harm than good, & we need to find out.”
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Unlocked is currently £4 off at Amazon:
Sorry to keep banging on about it, but this book really means a lot to me, and I genuinely think that if you're worried about your own screen time (or those around you), this will help reassure you.
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Your attention span isn’t getting shorter, and board games aren’t becoming faster/easier to win. Happy boxmas day
In a world filled with digital distractions, players’ attention spans are growing shorter. So manufacturers are making their games quicker and easier to win
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Just over three weeks until Unlocked is published. If a book about screen time is up your street - what it is, why we're in a mess over it, and how to fix that mess - then I'd be genuinely grateful for a preorder. Links here:
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Had a brilliant time at
#WarGamesLive
yesterday, so much fascinating insight from the panellists. Plus got a chance to check out the exhibition! Well done to
@curatorian
and the team (that’s
@CultSociologist
concentrating in the background)
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Some exciting news to share in the not too distant future, but in the meantime, another (sorry) shameless plug for Unlocked. If the current rhetoric around the social media/tech/wellbeing debate is worrying you, it might provide some reassurances:
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This, to me, says that NYC public health bodies are entirely unserious about having a proper conversation about social media. Absolutely infantile thing to do, which devalues the utility of health warning labels and health advisories.
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I make the argument in Unlocked that I don't think there's good evidence to support the existence of smartphone 'addiction'. My worry is that falling into that sort of language restricts the sorts of solutions available to us, some of which might not be as effective as we think.
Let’s free children from the misery of smartphone addiction. Let’s free them from doom scrolling, 24/7 bullying & the trauma of witnessing violence & rape. Let’s set them free to play, chat and run around, to go on adventures, to flirt, to study, to make mistakes & to grow wise.
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This is a really thoughtful post, and considers an often-lost voice in this whole debate: teenagers themselves.
In response to Florida's social media ban for young people & Haidt's new book,
@Margarita_KP
and I wrote a blog summarizing the scientific evidence of social media bans. We also discuss initiatives that would actually tackle youth mental health issues.
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Omg my article made it to the front cover of New Scientist!
In this week’s issue: Earth may hold vast resources of hydrogen fuel - now the race is on to extract it.
Grab a copy in shops now or download our digital editions.
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Happy publication day to one of the best science writers (and also one of the best people),
@TomChivers
! Everything is Predictable is the definitive book on Bayes' Theorem, and everyone should read it. (Also that cover 😍)
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Guardian yesterday: Phones are addictive! Apps are designed to be addictive! We're doing a digital detox!
Guardian today: Are phones really addictive?
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This is absolute nonsense, and
@BritishSciFest
should know better.
The headline: ⬇️
The evidence: “The [correlational? not sure as study not online or published] pilot study was relatively small … and was presented yesterday at the British Science Festival in Leicester”
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Me yesterday: oh man I really need a decent hook to start this chapter.
Me today:
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That's it. The book's filed. It's done <collapses>
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Why experts say we don’t need warning labels for social media, including comments from me:
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