Searching For Side Effects: Congress introduces bill granting $95 million to NIH to study media effects

Senior Emma Broaddus imagines herself at fifty. Her neck permanently hunched due to constantly looking down at her phone for the past thirty years. Her mind always cycling and wandering, never focusing. Her sleep cycle in ruin due to a jumbled circadian rhythm.

At age seventeen, she’s concerned. Concerned enough to set her phone outside her door every time she enters her room — out of sight and out of mind. She’s concerned for her fifty-year-old self because no one can tell her with absolute certainty how to stay safe from the possibly damaging effects of her phone.

With how little is known about how technological devices actually affect children, pediatricians around the nation are concerned, too. A new Congress bill introduced on Aug. 27 could give the concerned nation answers.

The Children and Media Research Advancement Act, if passed, would grant the National Institute of Health $95 million over the following five years to study how technology and social media is affecting the development of infants, children and teens.

Students like Broaddus are taking precautions in fear of what they don’t know about technology’s effects — and according to pediatricians, it’s crucial to resolve the uncertainty.

Dr. Dennis Cooley, a pediatrician and Legislative Coordinator for the Kansas American Academy of Pediatrics, believes it’s time to gather research on the effects of these newer and more modern forms of technology. In a developing age of social media and widespread mobile devices, pediatricians like Cooley fear many negative effects — attention deficits, decreased social skills and depression among them.

“There are so many other new things right now that we really don’t have a lot of research on,” Cooley said. “How can I as a pediatrician advise parents on what to do with their kids on how they should be managing their technology? That’s why this bill is so important. We really need the data to draw accurate conclusions.”

Freshman Evan Broaddus supports the call for conclusive results. He shares many of his sister’s concerns as well as her hallway cell phone policy, fearing that devices like his phone might begin to manifest negative consequences.

“It could be like cigarettes in the ‘20s and ‘30s, no one really knew anything about it and thought they were fine,” Evan said. “And technology is starting to look like it may develop into something that hurts people. Maybe not as badly, but definitely in some way.”

Cooley explained how new findings would come in the form of longitudinal studies which provide more accurate data by monitoring effects over a period of months or years, not just days or weeks. The problem, however, lies in their cost. Money needed to conduct a longitudinal study usually isn’t available due to higher governmental priorities.

Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Michigan University who gave feedback to the writers of the CAMRA Act, mentioned one of the first and only multi-year longitudinal studies pertaining to new forms of media.

In the study, the Journal of American Medical Association concluded that high schoolers who frequently checked and posted on social media and the internet may be prone to developing subsequent ADHD symptoms.

Radesky believes funding through the CAMRA Act will lead to many more of these longitudinal studies, supplying data about what other threats social media could instill.

Junior Jack Friskel circumvents the negative side-effects of social media by staying off of all platforms, with the the occasional Snapchat for communication.

“I’d rather talk to someone about what they did this weekend than spend time looking at pictures because it really does more harm than good,” Friskel said. “When we spend so much time developing our profiles on social media, we lose a lot of character.”

Friskel holds on to the face-to-face interactions that social media apps potentially take away. In his eyes, students who communicate more through their phones and less in person are losing vital social skills that could benefit them later in life.

“It all comes down, especially later on, to personal communication and having the social skills to interact with someone in person,” Friskel said. “In the end, a bill like this is only going to help people realize that.”

According to Radesky, claims like Friskel’s that advocate for less digital communication and more personal interaction are in line with pediatric consensus.

“Teens and humans as a whole are experience-dependent, and so the more practice you get at having a conversation, the better you get at helping someone through a difficult time or situation,” Radesky said. “That leads to being able to solve social problems at a higher rate.”

To Cooley, the importance of in-person interactions during a young child’s upbringing are even more important than they are at a high school age. When a parent substitutes their own interactions with that of a screen, children lose necessary development according to Cooley.

“You don’t want the screen to be the babysitter, because [the child] isn’t getting key benefits in their development that way,” Cooley said. “It shouldn’t be replacing face-to-face contact with adults, because that’s the way children learn best. Anything from reading a book with your mom to playing a game with your dad.”

Another possible concern to Radesky is media multitasking — the practice of engaging in one or more forms of media at the same time. It’s a topic that she believes needs more research because current evidence points to heavy media multitaskers silently shortening their attention spans as they do it, regardless of how easy the work is to manage.

Juniors Ellie Brown and Emma Burden both routinely watch Netflix on one side of their MacBook screen and study their vocabulary Quizlet on the other. Senior Kevin Grinstead regularly watches YouTube on one side while doing Conjuguemos on the other. However, the thought of a shortened attention span never crossed their minds.

“Ideas like [media multitasking] are what make this bill so important,” Radesky said. “There could be an endless supply of links that result in problems. We just don’t know them all yet.”

According to Cooley, the information that would come from the bill would be advantageous for all Americans regardless of their political stance. Due to the beneficial nature of the bill as a whole, Cooley feels it has a strong chance of being passed.

“Right now, it’s tough because when you ask us what are the effects of media on children and teens, we don’t know that,” Cooley said. “But this is something where everyone is aware of the potential problems, and we all want to find out what’s best to manage this.”

The CAMRA Act will be discussed further in Congress throughout the next year. If the bill successfully passes through the House and Senate, with President Trump signing it before the year passes, the funding will be set in motion.