Growing Up Lonely? Child Connection and Isolation in the Digital Age

00:00:11 – Introductions by Executive Director of Children and Screens Kris Perry

00:01:56 – Moderator Julianne Holt-Lunstad on the importance of social connection in the lives of children and adolescents.

00:12:29 – Milena Batanova on experiences of loneliness in American teens and young adults.

00:25:23 – Moderator follow-up: Are there preventative measures parents can take to protect children from loneliness?

00:28:29 – Jeffrey Hall on the ways that social media can support youth experiencing loneliness and common social pitfalls of social media use.

00:37:55 – Moderator follow-up: Is it the case that there is no large effect of digital media on loneliness, or that there are positive and negative effects that cancel each other out?

00:41:13 – Khadijah B. Watkins on the consequences of loneliness and ways to support children.

00:55:36 – Moderator follow-up: How can recommendations for supporting children be tailored to be age-appropriate?

00:58:14 – The panel addresses questions from the audience.

00:58:50 – Q&A: How can parents help a child with many online, in-game friends connect more with peers in real life?

01:01:59 – Q&A: Does a child’s use of FaceTime help them have social connection or signal their loneliness?

01:05:37 – Q&A: How can loneliness be prevented for a college-bound teen?

01:07:13 – Q&A: How can loneliness be reduced for an only child?

01:09:26 – Q&A: How can practitioners support parents struggling with their own social media use?

01:11:25 – Q&A: What strategies can parents use to help their children deal with feeling left out by not having social media when their peers do?

01:12:49 – Q&A: Are lonely children on social media more likely to be victims of foul play?

01:16:42 – Q&A: What supports are there for children in rural environments seeking social connection?

01:18:51 – Q&A: What roles do AI chatbots play in addressing loneliness?

01:22:49 – Q&A: Final thoughts from panelists

01:26:18 – Wrap-up with Children and Screens’ Executive Director Kris Perry.

[Kris Perry]: Hello and welcome to today’s Ask the Experts webinar Growing up Lonely? Child Connection and Isolation in the Digital Age. I am Kris Perry, Executive Director of Children and Screens. Are children lonelier today than previous generations? What does this mean for their long-term emotional and social well-being? Do digital connections truly foster relationships, or is it an illusion? What role, if any, does social media play in this dynamic? Today, our expert panel will delve into these critical issues examining how digital media use shapes youth experiences of isolation and connection. You will learn how to recognize signs of loneliness in children and discover strategies to foster their meaningful social connections. Now, I would like to introduce you to today’s moderator, Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad. Dr. Holt-Lunstad is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Director of the Social Connection and Health Lab at Brigham Young University. She is also the founding scientific chair and a board member for the US Foundation for Social Connection and the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection. Dr. Holt-Lunstad is an internationally recognized scientific expert on the international and population health effects, biological mechanisms, and strategies to mitigate risk and promote protection associated with social connection. Her research has been seminal in recognizing social isolation and loneliness as risk factors for early mortality. Her work is regularly highlighted on major media outlets such as The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, Scientific American, and many more. Welcome, Julianne.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Hello, very grateful to be here. I want to start by really thanking everyone for taking the time to be here today. Obviously, your attendance shows your care and concern about this issue. And today we’re going to be talking about a topic that affects all of us. But also, this is, a topic that is – also especially affects our youth and that is loneliness, although it’s often overlooked and misunderstood, loneliness can have a significant impact on our well-being. And this is especially true for children and adolescents. Today, we are going to hear from experts who can help us learn more about current trends and contributing factors, the role of digital media, and importantly, what parents can do. But before we get into the meat of this session, I want to provide a little background on why loneliness matters, why social connection is so vital, and why we need to pay special attention to our youth. We’ve seen growing concerns about loneliness that are being felt worldwide, and even before the global pandemic, we saw public figures calling this a ‘loneliness epidemic.’ These concerns have led to national and international efforts focused on reducing loneliness and isolation, and building greater social connection. We’ve seen this in the appointment of ministers of loneliness in both the UK and Japan. Our own U.S. Surgeon General, the office issued an advisory on our epidemic of loneliness and isolation, of which I was actually involved with that and, forthcoming we’ll see, the World Health Organization is going to be issuing a report on the importance of social connection as well. And so we’re seeing this, really, these efforts being, promoted worldwide, really illustrating the profound kinds of effects that this is having. And yet for far too long, our social life has been viewed as something that is perhaps nice to have, but not essential and yet robust evidence shows that social connection is vital to our health, well-being, safety, and even prosperity. There’s wide scientific consensus now that social connection is a fundamental human need linked to survival. And so these concerns should be considered in the context of our biology, and for children and adolescents, this is important because this is a critical developmental period. And so, if you, if we kind of take a step back, we can think about the fact that humans are social creatures by nature and throughout human history, we have needed others for survival. And, humans are the most vulnerable species at birth. The human infant cannot survive without the care of others. And so, throughout human history and throughout our lives, we have survived by living in groups, cooperating, and supporting one another. And this has shaped our brains to thrive on connection. And so we can think of loneliness as a biological signal similar to hunger and thirst. It’s something that’s normal and adaptive, but is somewhat uncomfortable. And it’s an uncomfortable feeling that motivates us to meet a biological need. And in this case, the biological need is social connection. Now, similarly, if we take that analogy farther, we can think of objective – isolation is the objective lack of that social connection. But just like we need food and water for survival,  we know that quality matters and that not all foods – and so foods can spoil and water can be unclean. And so, similarly we need to really pay attention to the quality of social connection as well, to ensure that we are able to thrive on that social connection. And so, I want to share the evidence that points to three key elements that are needed for social connection. And those are structure, function, and quality. So structure refers to the extent to which we have people in our lives. And, and the function is the extent to which we can rely on those people to fulfill various needs and goals. And finally, when it comes to social connection, of course, not all connections are positive. And although our relationships can be sources of joy, they can also be sources of conflict and strain. And so both adults and children alike need all three components of social connection in order to thrive. And so when these are high, we can thrive. But when any one of these is low or missing, there may be potential risk. And so when we have strong social connections, whether that’s with family, friends or community, we’re more likely to experience lower stress levels, greater sense of security and belonging. A strong support system acts as a buffer during tough times, and simply knowing that we have others that we can talk to can help reduce anxiety and promote emotional resilience. But these feelings of loneliness and the emotional responses that might accompany it are just the tip of the iceberg. And so, as we can see, from this slide from the CDC, we have evidence that this can have profound effects on risks for a variety of mental and physical health outcomes, including heart disease, stroke, dementia, type two diabetes, and even premature death. Research suggests that people with robust social networks often have better overall health. They can recover more quickly from illness and experience fewer chronic conditions, and even enjoy longer life. So why is this so important for our youth? Children and adolescents are at a critical phase of both their neural development and social development. They’re learning how to navigate relationships, manage emotions, and form their identity. Healthy connections during this time can lead to higher self-esteem, better coping skills, and stronger academic performance. And importantly, these can have long term impacts. Loneliness experienced in childhood or adolescence can have lasting effects. It may lead to issues with trust, self-worth, and even forming relationships later in life. Research indicates that persistent loneliness in youth can increase the risk of health challenges even into adulthood. And yet, we know our social life is changing, and our children’s life, social lives are changing as well. Much more of our time is spent on screens, and there’s a growing concern about the implications that this might have for a whole host of outcomes from mental health to academic performance. We also are seeing shifts in norms of how socializing is even valued. With the popularization of the notion of a social battery, this idea that socializing may be draining. We’re seeing images and memes and other forms of cultural discourse that is devaluing time spent together with friends, and isolation is being normalized. And yet, on the other hand, we see evidence of the desire for more friends. For example, Google searches for how to make friends is at an historic all time high. So identifying effective strategies are going to be really important, given that it’s clear that many people are having trouble doing this on our own. And so I’m thrilled today to have the privilege to introduce and hear from three incredible experts who can share more about the latest evidence on this topic. We’re first going to hear from Milena Batanova, who’s going to talk about trends and contributing factors. Next from, Jeffrey Hall on digital media use and loneliness. And finally, Khadija Booth Watkins on what parents can do to prevent and mitigate loneliness. So I want to start by introducing our first panelist member and speaker, Milena Batanova, who is the Director of Research and Evaluation at Making Caring Common and oversees the evaluation projects involving strategies for K through 12 schools and caregivers, as well as research studies on topics relevant to caring and well-being. Previously, Milena was a Postdoctoral Fellow and then a Research Assistant professor at the Institute for Applied Research and Youth Development at Tufts University. She received her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Texas at Austin and her Master’s degree is in Communication Studies at Arizona State University. She has also worked as a service learning coordinator, lecturer, and mental health practitioner. Welcome, Dr. Batanova.

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: Thanks so much for that wonderful introduction, and thank you all for letting me be here, being in such good company. And I’m so excited and thrilled to share our research with you all. So to make the most of this today, I plan to spend about five minutes on loneliness and mental health rates and the problems. And then the next five minutes will be on solutions and some general recommendations. Much of what I’ll overview is based on a nationally representative survey that we did of U.S. based adults last May with YouGov, a well-known research group. We also have data on teens that we gathered, or collected in late 2022 from another representative survey with NORC, also a really well known research group out of the University of Chicago. We are so grateful to our funders, I just want to give a shout out to our funders for making this work possible, Capita, as well as the Einhorn Collaborative, for making all this possible. Okay. So, from our survey last May, we found that overall, 21% of the adult sample said they’re lonely or feeling lonely frequently or always, almost all of the time in the past 30 days. Our survey on teens, so that’s the 14 to 17 age group found the same. But as you can see, for young adults, and especially 30 to 44 year olds, the rates were higher. So young adults was like 24% experiencing loneliness and 30 to 44 year olds was 29%. We consistently see mental health challenges, specifically anxiety and depression or depressive symptoms, highly correlated with loneliness. I can’t spend much time on the figures, but I want to highlight that we actually see much higher percentages of young adults reporting issues than we see in teens. So as you can see, our data on teens found that 18% reported anxiety and 15% reported depression, whereas for young adults, the percentages were over 50% for anxiety and over 40% for depression. I also want to highlight the rates for parents specifically, since I don’t, I just don’t think we talk enough about these issues among us as caretakers. Yet, you know, our health is so completely linked and intertwined with that of our children. And so it was pretty alarming to see that about a quarter of parents experienced loneliness. And you can see that rates of anxiety and depression, so those in the greenish blue and the grays, so the rates of anxiety and depression are really high, especially for parents of the younger kids, so children 0 to 5 or 6 to 11. So in the survey last year, we wanted to get under the hood of the types or dimensions of loneliness that adults experience. Up to 35% said they have no meaningful groups or communities, followed by about a quarter who said that they don’t have enough family or friends or deep emotional support. But we also found evidence of existential loneliness. So the ones in the, like, lighter orange bars, and existential loneliness is more like feelings of separateness or disconnection from others or the world in general, and we found it really striking that about 26% said their place in the world is not important or relevant, and almost 20% even said that they don’t feel a part of this country. So based on the teen survey that we did in late 2022, we also asked teens what contributes to their negative mental health. And we call this perceived drivers, so their perceived drivers of their poor mental health. As you can see, 30% said achievement pressure contributes negatively, so that was at the top of the list, followed by this general sense of things falling apart, lacking skills or talents, and financial worries, choice overload, school gun violence and friend or social stressors were also top issues above 20%. Lower on the list where things like bullying and discrimination and social media, which was actually selected by about 10% of teens. What we do see consistently linked to loneliness and poor mental health, is a really low sense of purpose or meaning. So as you can see, over 50% of our young adults reported lacking meaning or purpose and almost 40% of teens said they lacked purpose or meaning. And so what’s going on? You know, why are people feeling this way? And so in that survey last year, we really wanted to understand who or what adults say contributes to loneliness in America. As you can see, the top issue selected was technology. The specific item in the survey was people are so distracted by or used to technology that their in-person interactions are suffering. The other top issues were families lacking quality time together, working too much, or being too busy or exhausted, and mental health issues hurting our relationships. But not far behind was individualistic society, that we live in a very individualistic culture, and also lacking relationship or interpersonal skills. When we asked parents who are what contributes to their mental health challenges, being overworked or really stressed was at the top, 43% of parents cited that, followed by marital issues or issues, relationship issues with their partner or spouse as well as little social support. Okay, so now onto the more positive or the solutions. We also asked adults what would help reduce their loneliness. Encouragingly, as you can see here, the things that people said would help reduce their loneliness are things that I think we can work on or that are actionable, right, that are preventative or that we can work to mitigate or treat. So the top solution cited, by most adults was take time each day to reach out, to reach out to a family member or a friend or someone that you know. And then over 70% said learning to love themselves, learning to be more forgiving or positive towards people, and finding ways to help others. When we asked what would help reduce loneliness in general and strengthen our communities in general, over 70% said they really want to see more activities, more community activities or fun events, as well as public spaces that really focus on connection. So in that survey with teens, we found a few really important things that teens really want that I thought would be important to highlight here. 40% of teens said they want their parents to reach out more, to ask how they’re really doing, and to really listen. You know, this also really checked out in a number of focus groups that we did with teens, so many just say they want adults to really listen and get to know them on a really genuine level. Relatedly, parents’ perceptions can sometimes be way off about how their teens are really feeling or what they’re thinking. And so there needs to be more alignment or understanding there in terms of what parents are actually thinking their kids are thinking or feeling. Teens also want their parents, you know, to ask for input versus, to make them feel like they’re someone they’re not. And many teens also said they want their parents to share more about their challenges and perspectives. We did find, though, that for parents who shared too little or parents who share too much, those things can be linked to more anxiety or depression, so finding that sweet spot is really important of how much to share. So when I looked on to, you know, what strategies or interventions there are available for young people, I was surprised to see that I didn’t see too many that are targeted or tailored. And what I mean by that is strategies or programs that respond to specific experiences of loneliness in young people and also specific populations and age groups. But what we do know is that younger kids do benefit from play-based group activities, while teens respond well to peer mentoring with relatable role models. And according to adolescents themselves, I just saw an interesting paper from last year, where teens themselves were interviewed about what they want, and they want skills. They want self-development, emotion regulation, and interpersonal skills which is good because a lot of the available programs and interventions do generally focus on those things and social emotional learning skills and things like encouraging hobbies and young people. Here at Making Caring Common, you know, where I have the honor of working, we focus a lot on that. We focus on building skills as well as meaningful connections and caring communities. But we’re also now becoming really interested in more targeted and comprehensive strategies, especially as we see that there seems to be some disconnect. And so I just want to end with some general recommendations. I’m sure you’ve seen some of these or you already know, you know, you already put some of these into practice, but I think they serve as good reminders. You know, clearly we want to take an active interest in our kids digital media use, but we also want to establish clear and consistent rules. I think modeling good online habits is really important. And also creating an environment where our kids feel comfortable talking to us, right. Based on our research, we really see that that’s what kids want and need. But we also need to look out for mental health issues, whether it be like in our conversations, but also, signs, right, that we’re picking up on, from our, from our kids, but also our family as a whole, right. We want to look out for mental health issues in ourselves and our partner, and we want to address those proactively. And I think most importantly from, you know, what we see in our research, we really want to model meaningful connections in  general, and making sure to spend more time together in person, in real life, and really being present and showing genuine attunement with one another. So with that, I’ll end. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thank you so much. That was an incredible presentation. And, some really incredible data both on what’s happening and also that gives us clues for solutions, and this is so important. I want to follow up with a question. Are there preventative measures that parents should be putting in place prior to engaging in social media to protect their children from loneliness or isolation?

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: Yeah. I mean and you know, I think a lot of it is what I said at the end. I think, it really comes down to, from a prevention lens, right. Making time, making time for one another. You know, that finding that families lack quality time together was like a second reason for loneliness. I think that was a good reminder that it’s so important to carve out that time. I think it’s really important to encourage our kids to make time for others. And while that can be difficult, you know, I know I hear a lot from parents, including my own friends, that that can be tricky, right? Like they’d rather just stay in or play games or do what they’re already doing. And I think a lot of it does come down to modeling, right? Like if we’re modeling that, we’re taking time, we’re spending time on our connections, they might pick up on that. But also doing, you know, just like get them out. You know, try and set boundaries. You know, I think that was part of my first recommendation on establishing rules and boundaries is turn the screens off, right? Like make time to go out and actually do things and see people. And I think lastly is like really like just really being present in our connections and our interactions, right? So modeling that, but also doing that with our kids and with our families and with our friends and really getting to know ourselves in the process too right. It’s about being present with others but also with ourselves, so that we can really tune in to the things that are, you know, that are important and that matter most.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thank you again for an incredible presentation. We’re now going to hear from Dr. Jeffrey Hall. He is the author of over 100 research articles and book chapters on social and mobile media, making friends, and maintaining friendships, and attaining social health. He is the recipient of several major research awards, including an Early Career Award from the National Communication Association and the 2023 University of Kansas Scholarly Achievement Award. His 2020 book, Relating Through Technology, won two top book awards from the National Communication Association and his new book with Dr. Andy Merola, The Social Biome, was just released earlier this month. I look forward to hearing from you. Go ahead and take this, the screen.

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: Thank you so much. So, I want to begin by saying, welcome, parents. I know it’s so hard to make time to do these kind of things, and as a parent myself, I want to say thank you for being here and I hope I make it all worth your time. My own kids, who are 14 and 11, are people who I think about all the time when I think about these issues of screens and loneliness. My wife and I struggle to figure out how to create our household rules, my kids push back when we try to restrict their media use and their media time, and like all parents, I want my children to have friends and not be lonely. So I share a lot of the concerns with the parents and educators, here today. So I’m going to try to be as brief as possible so we can get to your questions. I just completed a year fellowship at the Berkman Client Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law, and my project was focused on how can we use positive uses of technology, social media, specifically. And at the end of my fellowship, the T. H. Chan School of Public Health invited me to give a lecture on social media use and loneliness. Four years ago, I wrote the book on relating through technology, and I really specialized in the idea of offline, online, you know, overlap, spillover, displacement, all these issues of like, what role do these things play in our lives? And then finally, I’m really excited about my new book, The Social Biome, where we look at kind of the nature and patterns of everyday social interactions and how they affect our health and well-being. So, like all of you, I might be here today a little bit because the debate on social media use has gotten hot, right? There are so much energy and interest about all of these things and there’s a lot of conversations about whether or not social media is a major factor in the concerns we have about our children, but I’m a little worried that the quality of our public conversation is not as strong as it could be. And I wrote a paper summarizing the research evidence called Ten Myths About Social Media Use and Well-Being, where I try to elevate the quality of this conversation. So I want to start with a major observation. If we start asking the question of whether social media is good or bad, we’re missing the point. It is not a question of either-or, and like so many things in our lives, it’s both-and. So this is what the research tells us. First, there is very poor evidence that social media causes loneliness. In fact, studies that have made people stop using social media have found that people feel less connected when they abstain from using it. In fact, my own study and another one done in several different countries throughout the world found that when people are off of social media, they’re less connected to all the other ways they connect with people through their mobile devices and otherwise. There is much better evidence that people turn to social media when they’re not feeling particularly well psychologically or emotionally, including they’re feeling lonely. A Stanford study summarized all of the available evidence, and an all in all, found that the negative effects of social media use are probably balanced out by the positive effects. An Oxford study of over 350,000 adolescents tried to identify the best predictors of adolescent well-being, and it suggested how many potatoes adolescents eat, or whether they’re wearing glasses are better predictors of adolescent well-being than the amount of time they spend on social media. And a recent eight-year longitudinal study of Norwegian youth found that it wasn’t the case that kids had more use of social media early on in their adolescence, that they had less social skill development or less friendship. Instead, tween social media use was tied to being a social teenager. So what this means is that for most adolescents and young adults, social media use is a net zero. It’s neither good nor bad. Some estimates suggest that this null effect probably applies between 75 and 80% of all adolescents. It’s just not a big factor in the overall well-being of kids. So while it’s not a cause of misery, it’s also not a particularly good use of your time. So we have to ask the question of, what would kids most likely be doing with their time if they weren’t on media? So I found in my own research, there’s not a lot of studies about this issue of displacement, where would this time go? But in my own research, I found that when adults are required to be off social media for weeks at a time, they don’t spend that time writing the next great American novel, or finally learning and playing a musical instrument. Instead, they usually do fill up that time by browsing the Internet, watching TV, and doing things that they were avoiding, like working in household chores. Similarly, we have to acknowledge that social media is competing with other media. TV, movies, games, Internet use, all of which existed, prior to social media, and they were the stuff that my generation was really preoccupied with and the generations before. Social media is taking time away from all of those things. If we look at social media, particularly influencer content, it mimics both in genre and content, streaming and broadcast media more and more. So it’s critical to understand that social media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It depends on what else teens would be doing with their time and what else they have available to them. So what’s a good use of time? I echo the panelists here. Building good relationships with friends and family is one of the most valuable, sustaining, nourishing, and meaningful things we can do with our time. And that is true at all ages of life. Close relationships are particularly important to young adults and adolescents. And all in all, I think that teens and tweens hanging out with each other is a pretty good thing. If they are using mobile and social media to find times to hang out with one another, to enjoy one another’s presence, to share jokes and memes and videos, it’s probably a pretty good way they could be using their device, and arguably the best way that they can be using media in general. So what does this mean for social media? So I would recommend that we pursue an understanding of both the good and the bad parts of social media through a relational lens. We should talk about who we communicate to, with what purpose, using what forms of communication and what’s the content. Consider the evidence that those who model the patterns of use seem to stand the most to gain by social media use. So what this means is kids who actually use social media in very very social ways also tend to have more friends and more time and face-to-face relationships too. By contrast, kids who are already struggling with loneliness are often more likely to have worse online experiences and get less out of using social media. Another Australian study offers another important insight. Over a year, it found that teens who use social media were – and it’s not necessarily the case that teens who use social media were lonelier. Instead, when kids had friendship conflicts and their quality decreased, they turned to social media to cope. So it seemed to be more the case the increases of social media use were related to the fact that they were struggling in their relationships with one another. So this doesn’t mean that social media is all good, and I don’t recommend the point of view to say social media is great, but I do think that there are ways specifically that adolescents feel social media is not always excellent for their experiences, because they can get pulled into digital dramas and conflicts with their friends through their mobile device. They can feel overwhelmed by the amount of messages, notifications, and posts to attend to. They feel they have to be accessible to other people, from waking up in the morning to the moment they fall asleep at night, and they often don’t know how to regulate their media use in general. They haven’t built those tools and exactly how to find ways to get disconnected from their meaning – from their mobile devices in meaningful ways. And one of the big kind of messages I want to share is turning to social media to cope with chronic loneliness is a poor coping strategy. So what should we do? My first recommendation is if you’re a parent, and you are modeling media use all the time, right? Your phone, your laptop, your TV patterns for teaching your kids what are the practices that are acceptable or encouraged in your household. And for adolescents, this modeling can turn into mentoring. Explain your own practices and why. Explain why you were compelled by your TikTok Reel. Explain why you are excited by your framing – your favorite media service and series. Explain why it’s so hard to disconnect to email. Recognizing that things that you are connected to in your own media practices and explain those to your kids helps them understand that you too are going through the process of figuring out how to manage your media use. Second, and this is something we do in my own household and it’s super hard. Set boundaries that are enforceable and ones that your teens can collaborate in making, and recognize that you have control over your child’s devices and platforms. In fact, a lot of media companies are working harder to give you more tools as a parent, from where they’re stored and how they’re using your household, but also things like screen time limits, notifications being disabled, how to get in and out of group text messaging and otherwise. The final thing that I would say is for your kids is try to steer towards meaningful, direct, personalized communication with their kids, which is something that other folks have mentioned here too. Be here now with your kids as long as you can and stay focused on the most important people in your life, both in person and when they’re far away from you. And so with all of this, I really encourage parents with a sympathetic lens to how hard it is to be a parent in this day and age, to really think about their role of media and their entire ecosystem in their life and how they use it with themselves, but also how they use it within their families. So I look forward to hearing more about your questions. Thank you.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thanks so much. That, I think really helps us think about the nuance of the experience that youth have with social media. And, you know, I appreciated the kind of recognizing that, the question of, you know, is it good or bad is kind of a false question. And – but I want to follow up on that because, you know, at one point you mentioned that, in a way, that it’s neither good nor bad. And overall, it’s not a big factor, but I wonder if, it’s not so much that it’s not a big influence, but rather we have this mix of positive and negative. So we have both these impacts, and when we aggregate them it looks like a net zero. But in reality we’ve got a series of positive and negative kinds of experiences and I wonder if you could say a little bit more about that. 

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: Yeah, absolutely. So one way to think about this is you can’t get the positive without the negative. So let me give you an example of this I find really, very important for teens. A lot of teens talk about the fact that they feel like they’re overwhelmed with obligations to like keep their Snapchat streak up or to promote their friend’s Instagram feed, or to respond to messages that are being done in a group text. My, you know, 12, my 11 year old just actually had group texts from friends that we all knew, and we knew their families, but it was over a hundred messages that she woke up with in the morning, messages from her friends. To be connected, you get overwhelmed. In order to figure out the best way to be there for your friends, that means you have pressure to be available to your friends. So there’s a lot of pressures that come from the desire to be close to friends, to gain approval from friends, and to enjoy those technological affordances of a Snapchat streak or a fun meme that you’re sharing. And the thing is, what’s difficult is that it’s hard to say no. If you want that sense of connection and support for your friends, you also have to be available to them. So this creates kind of a tension for kids that I think unfortunately can’t mean they just get the positive, which is relating to their friends, without the negative, which means your friends expect you to be available to them.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thanks. I know there’s probably going to be many, many more questions and I can’t wait for us to get to them in the later Q&A. But, we’re now going to turn to Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins. I’d like to welcome to this discussion. She is the Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program of the Massachusetts General Hospital McLean hospital. She’s the Associate Director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at MGH and the Associate Director of the Psychiatry Clerkship at Harvard Medical School. She specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of psychiatric disorders in children, adolescents, and young adults. Dr. Watkins has presented locally and nationally on topics related to anxiety, school refusal, parenting, diversity, suicide prevention, and physician wellness. Additionally, she has consulted to several mental health organizations, television shows, and media outlets. Welcome, Dr. Watkins.

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins] Thank you for having me and thank you for making the time and inviting me to join this conversation. As a parent, I know it can be really tricky to navigate and strike a balance so I’m looking forward to having this conversation and your questions afterwards. So, I’m just going to jump right into it so that we can make sure that we have time for questions. We’re talking about loneliness, isolation in this era of high stress and conflict, combined with grief and loss. We talked already about the advisory that the Surgeon General put out. He’d been really busy, he’d put out a ton of advisories over the past couple of years. But really, this advisory served to kind of create a framework that we can use to really advance social connection for our adolescents and young adults. I think this number is really important as well, and I think it was talked about a little bit as well, but how lonely kids are even at school. And I think this is really, really important if we think about how much time our kids spend in school. Like they probably spend what, at least 85, 90% of their awake hours in school. And so to not feel connected, to not feel, engaged in their environment where they spend so much time is really important, and important for us to kind of think about how we can address that later. No surprise, he’s saying that we are spending more time alone and less time engaging in in-person interaction. But what I thought was really striking was he likened loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and I think that really creates a picture for a lot of us. And so there are real, real consequences to loneliness. And it kind of affects our body in the same way as, you know, stress does. When we’re under a lot of stress, it’s unrelenting, it seems to never end, it affects our body because it increases the same hormones, a cortisol hormone, which is the stress hormone, that impacts our body. So it disrupts our sleep, it really disrupts our relationships. For our kids, it gets in the way of their academics, they start to decline, their emotional problems. They begin to engage in unhealthy lifestyle habits and substance misuse. And so, you know, it’s been said before that we’re pack animals. And I know this is not a pack, it’s a pride, but I’m a Leo and I’m fond of lions. But, you know, when we are lonely, it really makes it hard for us to regulate. And so this is where we find trouble with the emotional eating and the substance misuse, kids are using that substances to be able to self-soothe and self-regulate. We see more increased risk of anxiety, depression and suicidal thinking. And just like when we under a lot of stress for a long period of time, loneliness can really impact our bodies physically as well. So at the Clay Center, which is one of the places that I work, we talk a lot about the 3Ws, this is what kids want to know, and especially this is what parents want to know. They want to know what to look for, when to worry, and what to do. And so we talked about, this is another advisory that the Surgeon general put out about social media, and I agree 100% that there’s not a causal relationship. But because our kids are spending so much time on it, we do have to think about what – where for some kids that are vulnerable, how this might be a contributing factor, I think that’s how I like to think about it. Because they’re online all the time for lots of different things. So if we think about how much time they spend online for school and schoolwork, yes, they’re online, social media, gaming, but they’re also online, you know, watching movies, maybe watching movies with the family or with friends. They’re online also kind of communicating with other family and friends near and far. So I think it’s important to think about the positive, especially for kids who are struggling with trying to find a place in a space for people that they get – that gets them, it can be a place where they can find that. So I think we do have to not ignore the positives that come about. But we do need to also know when digital use is problematic because it can be for some kids. When do we need to sound the alarm? = I think about it and I break it down into duration, interference, and impairment, and pain and suffering. So if kids are spending too much time online, if it’s getting in the way of the things they need to do, or if they’re no longer doing the things that they used to do, they used to enjoy doing because they’re choosing to be online and on screens. This is where we need to be concerned. And if it’s causing them pain and suffering. And so when I go back to impairment, interference, so for instance, if kids are not able to get in bed on time or they’re not able to get up in the morning because they’re online, or if they are no longer wanting to hang out with friends and family because they’re online. So it’s interfering with their ability to function. And these are the things that are cause for concern. So thinking about some of the causes of loneliness, this is not an exhaustive list, but I think this is important for us to be mindful of because it allows us to be able to be proactive and preventative if we know what some of the causes are. So kids who have lost a loved one or a major – uh – attachment figure. Kids who are who have moved, so if we think about kids who have to relocate, they have to find a new neighborhood, they have to find new friends, they go on to a new school often, this can create a situation where it lends to them being lonely. Divorce can be a source of a reason for kids to be in lonely conflict with other friends and being bullied, but also kids who struggle with social skills, kids who struggle with being able to read, you know, verbal cues, nonverbal cues with other kids. These are all kids who are maybe more vulnerable to being lonely, and I think this is really important as a caregiver, if we’re thinking about who is vulnerable, and we start to see signs of symptoms of loneliness, we can be – we can kind of raise our alerts a little bit more. And so you might be wondering, what are these signs or symptoms you speak of? Signs of symptoms of loneliness look different for kids and adolescents, and so with younger kids, we might see and for – let me go back – for both kids and adolescents, we’re really talking about a change from baseline. So, with younger kids we might see that they are creating imaginary friends to make place for the real friends, they might be a little bit more regressed, they might be clingy, more irritable, crying a little bit more, feeling more shy and withdrawn. Adolescents, it’s a little bit harder to really kind of tease out, but they might retreat to their rooms for longer periods of time. You might say, “my adolescent is always in their room for long periods of time.” But again, this is the deviation from the norm or their baseline, and so they’re not coming out of their rooms for dinner, they’re not coming out of their rooms to watch a movie, they’re not coming out of their rooms for chats. This is a sign that something is off. They might start talking to you more than they usually do. Again, you might be saying, “well I would love for my adolescent to talk to me, they don’t talk to me at all as it is.” But again, if this is a deviation from their baseline, this again might be cause for concern. Kids who are no longer hanging out with their friends or they don’t have any friends outside of school, these are things to kind of just raise the flag that something might be going on and we might need to have conversations with them. And so what do parents want to know? They want to know what they can do as caregivers to support their kids. So if we circle back to the advisory, he laid out these seven high-level recommendations that really focus on prevention, um, and management of loneliness and young adults and adolescents, and I won’t go through all of them, but I will kind of highlight a few of them that I think are really relevant here. Recommendation number one is really talking about secure attachments and how do we create and maintain secure attachments with our kids, because this will really carry them through, because they get their idea of who they are, how they should attach, how they should see other people first with us. And so, this will also allow them to be more resilient, they’ll feel more secure in themselves, and they’ll feel more confident and secure asking for help and support when they do need it. The second recommendation is really about modeling healthy social connections. And this is really important, the modeling part, because kids see everything, and so – you know, what does that – that saying, “be the change you want to see,” we are the models for our kids in building social relationships that are healthy because, again, they will, they’ll take their cues from us. What do they – what do we need to model? We need to model how to be respectful, how to resolve conflicts in a healthy manner, how to communicate effectively, how to set, you know, healthy boundaries, how to maintain those boundaries. And so when I say they’re watching, also it’s important to not talk about people behind their back. So maybe if you have family over or if you’re on the phone, like be mindful of what you’re saying and how you’re describing people and what you’re talking about. Because again, the kids are watching, they’re listening. Being mindful of your tone and your nonverbal body language is really important. But also, it can be hard as adults, but it’s important to show them that it’s okay to apologize when you’ve hurt someone or you’ve done something wrong. So again, modeling these habits are really important for young kids because they are learning from us. The other thing that we can do is obviously spend time together. I think this is really important to pull them out of their rooms. You know, this can also be really helpful if we try to plan time together, especially as kids get older and they have their own schedules. And then also, you know, social – socialize away from technology is important. Create time where there’s tech-free time and space, so maybe between the hours of X and X, we don’t use screens and we don’t use phones, or at the dinner table whether we’re having breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack, there are no phones, but create these spaces in places where we can have tech-free time, or we can just communicate and engage with one another. I’m going to combine recommendation three and four, because it really just talks about how to help facilitate and foster safe, strong, healthy, stable relationships with supportive adults, but also with their peers. And so, I think for some kids, this can be a little bit tricky because they need a little bit of help and kind of creating the spaces or creating the connections, and this is where the parents and caregivers come in. And if we think about some of the causes of loneliness, it’s really rooted in relationships, and so if we think about adolescence, this is a really vulnerable time for them because they’re in the process of forming their identity, figuring out who they are. Adolescence in general is a pretty dramatic period of time where there’s lots of drama, there’s changes in relationships and friendships, and so they really often will need our support, and so we will have to help them find things, activities and places to be that they can connect with other people, whether adults or other peers, and do things they enjoy doing, do things that give them purpose and a sense of meaning. And so now I’m going to skip all the way down to recommendation number seven, which really is about talking to your kids about social connection. And so, I will talk all the time about having conversations because it’s so important that we’re having conversations, having conversations regularly and often before their problems ideally is best, but even afterwards, you know, never too late to start. But what I cannot emphasize enough is that it has to be a non-judgmental zone. The best way and the quickest way to shut down a conversation, to shut a kid down for talking to you and ensure that they probably won’t come to you with anything else is to come across as judgmental or overly critical. You have to be mindful of not just what you say, but the words that you choose, the tone, the volume, and again, your nonverbal body language and cues. As we’re having these conversations, you know, we want to make sure that we’re listening, giving them our undivided attention, we’re being validating, we’re providing guidance, you know, not – again, depending on the kid and the age we don’t want to be – we don’t want to be too heavy on the guidance, we might want to do this more collaboratively, but we do want to give them some help and some guidance and some direction. Again, it’s extremely important to have these conversations as early as possible so that they can feel normal. We’re normalizing the conversations, we’re kind of trying to decrease the stigma around it. And so then when something is coming, something big does happen, it doesn’t feel as awkward as it could be, or as it may be if we hadn’t already been having these conversations. It can feel awkward, especially again if we’re not having these conversations regularly, how to initiate them? But I would say, you know, we want to keep the conversations light. I always say find the cracks, you know, while we’re in a car ride, while we’re watching TV during the commercials, when we’re out for a walk, find these little moments where we can kind of sneak in these conversations. Keep it light, follow their lead, be honest, it’s okay to not know the answers. But again, the non-judgmental tone and stance is really really important. Also, when we’re having these conversations, we want to encourage our kids to become more socially aware of how they’re feeling when they’re engaged in these various interactions, where they’re engaged in online interactions or in-person interactions. We want to be able to help them to identify and label their own feelings and emotions, and so this will then provide clarity for them so that they can make choices and decisions about whether they want to continue to be on these websites, whether they want to continue to be friends with so-and-so. You know, who is a safe and trusted friend and who is not, what relationships are healthy and which ones are not. And so these are just some sample questions. You know, how did that message, image, video make you feel, or when so-and-so said X or did such and such, how did you feel about that, and get them to start thinking about their feelings and their emotions around certain interactions and individuals is really important so that they can do this without you. And these are just some tips that we can share with teens that they can kind of again, be a little bit more self-directed. We want to encourage them to give, we know the power of giving is really helpful in terms of boosting your mood and making you feel good. Encourage kids to enjoy groups, whether it’s groups at school or in the community or online. If your household will so allow, you know, pets can be really helpful to mitigate loneliness as well. It’s also important to, you know, for some kids, especially kids who are artistic and even for kids who are not, you know, immersing themselves in arts can be really, really helpful. And then lastly, I would say, you know, joining a group or an organization, again, when you’re aligned with people who have similar views, thoughts and values, working towards a similar goal, can really enhance the sense of connection. So again, just to wrap up, I go back to the three W’s. We talked about, you know, what to look for, what to do, and when to worry. Again, so important to have these conversations. Kids sometimes need us to help foster connection with adults and other kids, and then also is – we don’t have to do this alone, it’s been done and there’s lots out there. And so, you know, it’s important for us to reach out to – as caregivers – to reach out to our supports to take care of ourselves. And so I will end it there, I think, hopefully I made it under the ten minutes. 

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thank you so much. Those three W’s are so incredibly useful. You know, as a parent myself, I could certainly resonate with many of the parents that I hear from constantly that are always feeling so – or expressing that they feel powerless often. And so by providing so many incredible recommendations, this can certainly empower parents. And I want to follow up with that because, the kind of what to look for, and how to act – when we think about children and adolescents, there’s such a huge range, right? From small children to, you know, school age to, you know, middle school, high school and even college-bound. And so I’m curious if you – your recommendations that you provide, how you might tailor some of these depending on the age of a child.

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: I mean so we always want to be kind of trying to promote independence, you know, gradually as developmentally appropriate. But just for instance, if we’re thinking about organizing playdates, you know, and even my son, who’s 16, any time he does it on his own, it’s a disaster, I always had to end up calling the parent and getting the logistics. But so for a young person and for a child, it might just be you’re connecting with the parents, you’re selecting a place and space to allow time for kids to socialize with one another is important. For a middle school kid, you might have more collaboration about who they want to hang with, what they want to do, and then for a college student or an older kid, you might just want to make suggestions, like I haven’t seen you hang out with so-and-so in a while, what do you think about getting together with, you know, X? You know – I hang out with their mom from time to time, why don’t we all get together and go, you know, to dinner. So, you know – it gradually goes from you doing it all to you, you know, helping and then to you kind of make recommendations and suggestions. Now I think across the board, you know, as parents, we kind of sometimes fall victim to having our kids be overscheduled, and I think this is a really, really big problem as it relates to loneliness and isolation. We think they’re busy, they’re around people, and so they possibly – they can’t possibly be lonely. But when they’re overscheduled, you know, doing three groups, playing two sports, taking five AP courses, they don’t really have time to let loose and let go and have this kind of just purely pleasurable time with their peers or even their other trusted adults, maybe it’s grandparents or aunts and uncles. And so really making sure that we are not overscheduling them when they’re younger, but also as they get older, helping them to manage their schedules and make sure that they’re not themselves overscheduling themselves. So I think those two things are two examples of how we kind of gradually adjust our approach to a more collaborative approach, to eventually just kind of more just making suggestions.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thanks so much. I appreciate all of the panelists’ presentations. I would like to invite them all to come on camera and unmute themselves. This is the exciting point in the schedule where we get to take questions from the audience, and there are so many incredible questions that are coming in. And so I’m going to field some of these questions, some of them might be more aligned with, you know, one of you, but I certainly welcome any one of you to respond. The first one I’m going to share with you is – the question is, my only child at ten has never had a best friend, but thinks that online game friends are his friends. How to help him connect in real life? 

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: I mean, I would go back to, you know, it starts with having a conversation. You know, who are the kids that you are hanging around at school? What gets in the way of you hanging out with those kids? You know, would you like to hang out with those kids? If not these kids, who – what kind of kids would you like to hang out with? Because maybe the kids at their school, depending on how big or small it is, maybe there aren’t people there that he or she connects with. And so I think it starts with having conversations. And then for some kids, especially kids who are shy, maybe a little bit more awkward, it can really be helpful to, you know, role play with them. Maybe they just need a couple of scripts to get them through so that they have some rehearsed responses until they feel comfortable, like no one wants to feel like a deer in the headlights. And so I think those are just a couple of things that can be helpful, but I think it always or often goes back to really having a conversation with your kid. They usually have thoughts and opinions, and I wouldn’t discount their online friends, but I would also, you know, encourage them to say, you know, maybe let’s see if we can find some friends that we can actually go to dinner with or go to the park with and expand our friend circle. So I would be very very careful to also not discount or invalidate those online friends. Make sure they’re safe friends, but not invalidate them. 

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Yeah, I mean, related to that was, you know, another question about, in essence, kids playing video games with others that, you know, with them, but they’re, you know, in their own home and, you know, to what extent does this count as socializing? Or is it, you know, different, right?

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: Well, I think that we have to remember that gameplay is not at all the gameplay of ten years ago or 20 years ago. The online games are incredible in their diversity of the ways to connect. So, you know, kids can actually talk to people using Discord through their online – while they’re playing games with them, they can communicate through text. There’s lots of ways within game play that you’re interacting and you’re talking and that these ways of doing so really can’t kind of paint with a picture like this sort of gaming is only one way. In fact, it tends to – how you use gaming as you – how you engage with people varies greatly between people. So I think that when talking about the specific question of what about these online friends, you can ask them what makes them friends, you know, do you talk to them? How do you play with them? What are the games that you’re playing? Showing interest and curiosity about that, because some gaming consoles, a friend just means someone you’ve played against before, right, competitively, but others mean are people who you play with regularly and talk to and text with and share ideas with. So I think what’s important here is that gaming itself is not a monolith, it’s not just one thing. It’s a lot of different ways to communicate these days. 

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: You know, it’s interesting because many of the questions I think are quite related to this, and it’s interesting because not just gaming, we’re also hearing, so I’ll read another one, what if my children are online talking to their friends on FaceTime and playing a game together online, sometimes in a group simultaneously? Is that considered connecting socially, or are they demonstrating loneliness by doing this behind closed doors for hours and hours? They seem to prefer hanging out online as a group rather than in person. Any thoughts?

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: I think what’s funny about this is that I don’t know that that’s all dissimilar to what I did when I was a kid, except for I couldn’t be in the same room. I didn’t even have the ability to be in different rooms and play video games, but I loved playing video games with my brothers when I was growing up and with my friends when they would visit. Like it was – it was a really common shared experience, particularly amongst boys. So I think what’s important here is I think if you’re if you’re doing FaceTime, which is a video chat, you know, tool and you’re playing a game for hours and you’re hanging out and you’re laughing and you’re being competitive and you’re bringing other kids into the dynamic. These are all really, really good things. And this does not usually stop just in a person’s room by themselves or in a basement. Back in the 1990s, when we’re talking about me, this carries over into your next day of school. If they go to school together, this kind of play carries over into the weekend and, you know, enjoyment of your free time when you have it. So I think we have to keep in mind is this is part of a broader sort of ecosystem of engagement that is different than, I think, prior forms. But I would absolutely respond to the question that was asked here is, this is social connection. Talking to people over video chat is absolutely, and according to the research, as good or almost as good as face to face communication when it comes to the possibility of connection. 

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: Can I add something to that though, like I – I would worry though, if it replaces, right, in-person, meaningful relationships. Like if it is the only form of connection, then I would just pay attention to that, right, and I would want to encourage a balance, right. And there was something in that question that struck me, demonstrating loneliness, like, is this demonstrating? I think that’s so interesting to put it that way. Because I think it’s important to reinforce or reiterate, right, that we can be lonely in a group, in a crowd, while doing social activities. So I think it’s a very fair question. But I think it also reinforces the need to really, like, look into it, look under the hood of what’s going on, right? So to Khadijah’s point, you know, I really appreciate your reinforcing and reiterating the importance of conversation. I think one of the ways you know if like a kid is really demonstrated or feeling lonely, you really gotta talk about it, right? Like talk about their experiences, but also notice interactions and experiences, like, are they withdrawing from those in-person interactions and simply replacing them with the online? Like, you know, maybe that is a sign. But I think you need conversation there to really understand what’s going on. 

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Yeah. And I appreciate, you know, there’s a lot of nuance in these, right? And so I appreciate the different perspectives, and we have various data that we can draw on that also really help us think about, kind of this – these – online social connection and the in-person connection, and it should never replace or eliminate in-person connection. So here I’ve got another question from the audience. Given the high rates of loneliness in young adults, do you have any advice for parents of older teens who are soon to enter that development stage? How can they prevent loneliness in youth, who are, for example, going off to college?

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: I think, you know, planning can be helpful. You know, thinking about like, you’re going to be here, you’re going to be away from home, like your friends are going to be scattered. How are we going to get connected? Like what groups are you going to join? You know, are you going to maybe – are there groups for people who are all from Massachusetts? Are we going to join certain interest groups to help them think about how they’re going to be connected? How are you going to keep in touch with your home friends, like, granted, maybe initially you’ll talk to them more than you will as days goes on, but how will you keep in touch with your home friends? And, should you feel like things are not going well in terms of emotionally, what is that – what’s going to be our plan? So I think a lot of it, especially, for our kids, getting ready to go to college is a lot of planning and preparing and thinking through the potential pitfalls. You know, not with the plans this is going to happen, but just in case we rather kind of, come up with a plan when we’re not in a crisis versus when we’re in a crisis. So I think that can be really helpful for some, for some kids, you know, and again, encourage them to, if they do sports, like maybe you want to join if you’re not on the college team, they typically have intramural teams, like what are you going to do to kind of connect and engage and find your people?

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: So I have another question. And maybe, perhaps this one might be, best for, Milena. Are only children more likely to feel lonely than children with siblings? Are there various things like boarding schools helpful to reduce loneliness in this case?

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: I actually don’t know the answer to that question, I have no idea. I have an only child, and you know, sometimes I do get a little, I don’t know if the word is offended, but I do get, like, sometimes people imply that, like, oh, maybe he is more susceptible to loneliness, right? Or, he needs friends more. And my answer to that is like, you know, it depends on the kid, it depends on your relationship to your child, it depends on the activities and, you know, experiences that they have available to them. So I’m not sure it’s, like, useful to compare it, you know, only versus multiple kids. Yeah, I think it just comes down to, like, the types of diverse and dynamic experiences or opportunities that you’re able to provide your kid. And again, going back to the conversations, the modeling, I really love that, that’s kind of been a running thread for me in this whole conversation so far, just how important modeling is and having really meaningful conversations and experiences, and really focusing in on like really, you know, getting to know people and getting to know each other.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Well and I was just going to add, I was recently reading some research on the importance of siblings throughout life and how oftentimes our siblings are the longest relationships that we have because they often outlast our parents, and come before our friends. And so I think the bigger question is, regardless of whether someone has siblings or not, how do we maintain that, you know, greater connection and maintain those connections long term, regardless of what our situation might be. And so utilizing the resources that we do have. I’m gonna turn to another question. This one is, how can practitioners support parents who model lost connection and isolation as well, based on using social media problematically themselves? 

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: I don’t know if I understood the first part of the question, but is the question, “How do we support parents who also struggle with social media use?”

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Yeah, I think that – I think so. 

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: Oh, okay, um – So I would say it starts with just some education, like educating them around, you know, what their actions, their behaviors, and how this comes across to their child, especially if they have concerns about their child’s use. It’s kind of hard to really speak to that if they don’t have any concerns about their use and they don’t have any concerns about their child’s use of social media. So it’s kind of a tricky question. It also depends on where they are in terms of ready to make changes. Are they willing to make the sacrifices? You know, if I say this is, you know, dinner time is a tech-free zone, I can’t also then have my phone up. And so what are you willing to do? Because I think it was said at some point how important consistency is, and how important consistency is when you kind of are making rules and expectations for you and your family. So I think there’s a lot of other questions that I think we would need to kind of answer to kind of figure out how to engage. But, you know, if they want support and they want help, you know, it’s really about helping them think about what 

what does being online – what are they doing online? How is it – what are they getting out of it? You know, so that you can kind of figure out what the function of the behavior is so that you can help them alter it? I think that’s kind of a bit of a roundabout answer, but.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: I’ve got another question here. What advice would you give to parents who have not allowed their children access to social media, but whose children are now saying that they feel left out?

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: So I would definitely say it’s a family choice that I always tell parents they’re the expert on their kids, they know what their kids can and can’t handle. You know, you might have a kid who’s more impulsive and it’s probably better to maybe delay their exposure, but at the end of the day, social media is not going anywhere, so whether they have access or don’t have access, we need to teach them. you know, some basic, you know, media literacy and safety around social media. But if they are feeling left out and ask them again, the conversation. So what about not having makes you feel left out? Is there room – I ask, is there room for compromise? You know, is there a room to be able to say they can have one platform and not another? Can we set some time limits on the platform? You know, talk about what your concerns are and what your ground rules are for them using, explain to them what your concerns are for them having even access. But I think it would start with really trying to understand why they’re feeling left out and lonely and how we maybe without giving them access can mitigate that. But if not for figuring out is there a middle ground that we can kind of make a compromise?

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Thanks. Did anyone else want to add anything? 

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: No. I think that was terrific. I think that was really good advice. 

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Okay, I’ll move on to the next one. Are lonely children who use social media more likely to be victims of foul play? 

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: Well, lonely children, I think, are more vulnerable. I don’t know – or they can be more vulnerable. You know, I think if we think about what happens when we’re lonely in terms of, you know, having a harder time regulating, maybe they’re more impulsive, so maybe they’re making more rash decisions or maybe not using great judgment. I don’t know if there – I don’t know if there are statistics on that per se, but I would say just in terms of just thinking about kids who are vulnerable, you know, and giving them extra padding and cushion and protection, would be important. Milena, you were going to say something. 

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: Well, it just made me think about, like, research on, you know, loneliness being, you know, with the brain is obviously being tied to, like, going into self-preservation mode, right? And there’s evidence that when you feel lonely or deeply lonely, you can withdraw, right? You numb and – or you are highly sensitive to comments, right? And you might like turn what might otherwise be benign or not necessarily offensive or negative comments, but you know, critical comments into, thinking that, you know, you’re being attacked. And so I could see how that could be something that lonely kids could experience online more so, right. If their brain goes there, it could be particularly dangerous. But to Jeff’s point, and maybe Jeff, you want to speak to this because you were talking about this research. Like – depending on what lonely kids gravitate to online or on social media, it might also be really good and protective, right? It just depends on what they’re gravitating to and using it for. 

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: Yeah, I guess I’m puzzling over the question’s foul play part. So one thing that seems to be the case is that the association between loneliness and social media is weaker than the association between having a lack of parental support or love, or a comfortable environment and loneliness. So, if you – if you are, you are a child growing up in an environment where you feel unsupported, you know, you’re not really receiving the kind of relationships from your caregivers that are really strong you’re more likely to be lonely, but the relationship – then that’s also the case that kids who are in environments who are very much, you know, dealing with lack of socioeconomic resources, lack of parenting resources, otherwise, they’re also more likely to use social media. So this is a trifecta of things that all go together. So, is a kid who are all of those things probably more likely to be vulnerable and in, you know, ways that might lead them to harm from others? I think that’s probably true. But it really depends on thinking about this as kind of a system of different sort of characteristics that are all leading to that child being in a position where they might be vulnerable of — you know, whatever sort of harms. But I think that the other question that was being referred to here is, is it the case that some kids were very isolated in their homes are looking through social media to find connection outside of that and we do have evidence that particularly people from sexual minoritized communities and racial minorities groups are using social media to try to connect over space when they don’t feel connected at home. So what’s tricky about this is, in part, is that, again, social media can be used for a lot of characteristics, both good things and bad things. But the foul play one I’m struggling with, because I guess it really depends on where we think that foul play is coming from. It could be from, you know, other people on the internet, like in the case of, you know, hate speech or otherwise, but it could also be coming from people in their own homes in which they’re not- it’s not a particularly safe environment to begin with.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: There’s another that – there’s a couple that I’m actually going to kind of combine. But it ties somewhat, I think, to some others. But, are online connections a valuable alternative for physical connections to practice social skills in children with social anxiety? And then other questions were also about kids in, say, rural areas that may have less access.

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: I think it goes back to what kind of what you just said, Jeff, about kids who are marginalized, they don’t have what they need where they are, is it’s almost like, we open the borders and we make it limitless for them to be able to go outside of their small little confinements and find people like, find their people. People who have similar interests, shared interests, similar values where they may not have it where they are. And so I think that is one of the beauties, and benefits of social media and being able to kind of expand your horizon and your access and your reach.

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: I think that that’s true. I mean, what’s – it’s interesting if you look at people who are talking about the internet back 25 years ago, this is what they were so excited about. The possibility of people reaching across time and space to reach understanding others, to be seen as the individuals they are rather than by some – their, you know, their particular demographic characteristics. I mean, there’s a lot of potential there. But I would also say that there does seem to be this characteristic where people who are using the Internet to try to find, you know, communities are also more likely to have to confront some of the more negative things in the internet. So one example of that would be probably sexual minoritized youth who might look and, you know, to try to find individuals who they can feel connected to or understand but they also might see a lot more hate speech or otherwise in looking around. Because you can’t look around the internet really, and find only good things – it doesn’t – that’s not an option.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: So, as I’m looking at time, I want to kind of lump the last few sets of questions together and it’s a big one. And this is around AI and chatbots. They are gaining in popularity, so I’m going to – I’m going to read like two or three of them and maybe we can all talk about them combined. So, chatbot companion apps are claiming to cure the loneliness epidemic by providing digital partnership. Thoughts on this claim? The next one, does AI exacerbate loneliness and a lack of desire for connection for youth? And, finally, with the advent of AI chatbots, how do you think emerging, compelling digital companions fit into the conversation of digital loneliness? And so this is, this set of questions is all around these, you know, instead of, are we spending time with others, digitally versus in-person, but now – socializing with a non-human. So I’m wondering if, if you all maybe could, speak briefly, in our last few remaining minutes, on what you think the role of AI and chatbots are, in understanding loneliness? 

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: I’d begin by saying there is no regulation of this. So to trust these companies claims’ that they’re going to solve or cure loneliness is totally, that’s just made up. There is no regulation of AI chatbots in terms of verifying the accuracy of the claims, so we want to treat these as advertisements. Like you may also believe that the new skincare product is going to make you look 20 years younger, but you should treat the same sort of claims about solving loneliness with an AI chatbot. It’s advertising, it’s not based on statistics or evidence. My read of the current literature on this is, it’s really premature. We don’t really have a clear picture about whether or not people who use social media – or use, excuse me – AI chatbots or otherwise can make their loneliness go down. There is some evidence that maybe that people enjoy the experience and sometimes can’t tell the difference between a chatbot and a real person on the other side of the line especially as they’ve gotten a lot more developed. But I would also caution against the idea that because these are also not regulated, we do not know the boundaries in which that these things will correspond with your child or otherwise. The guardrails are not there, and the government hasn’t so far decided it’s not going to regulate them. So I’m not really sure, I’m not really sure that I would – I would not advocate in any way, shape or form this particular medium for solving loneliness or necessarily being a safe product yet, because I think they’re too new and we don’t know enough about them.

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: Yeah. And I can see, you know, I can certainly see value or benefits for certain people based on certain needs, right? But as a whole, I do worry about the replacement aspect like we’ve talked about. I really worried that they, you know – use of these might replace real interactions, in-person interactions, also because of the convenience factor. Right? Like I’ve read that you can kind of ask a chatbot or an AI to like respond to you the way you want, right? So the idea that you, you don’t ever get challenged, or criticized or – you know, just kind of, yeah, challenged in some way, I think it’s really important to our, like, social emotional functioning and development, right? We need that as people. And so I don’t want to erase, like, the messiness of like real, in-person social interactions that I think AI, you know, bots are kind of, you know, trying to advertise around.

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: So, we are in our final two minutes and, so just want to, also just add to what you all are saying and just also note that there is a business model behind many of these as well, and so we also need to be really careful about the kinds of data that’s being collected on kids with these as well. But in our final two minutes, I want to invite you each to, just briefly, give your final thoughts, and perhaps we can, just go in the same order that you presented. 

[Dr. Milena Batanova]: Sure, you know, I’ve – I know I’ve said this over and over in my presentation, in my answers. I think really, focusing in on what matters, you know, our time together, carving out time, making time for one another, whether it be online or in-person, is so important. Cultivating skills, like working on our skills, ‘cause that’s what I gather is so much of this is about skill development, you know, in terms of emotion awareness and our personal relational skills. And then really doing, you know, performing them, really enacting them in real life, is so important. Yeah. So I think those will be my final thoughts.

[Dr. Jeffrey Hall]: Yeah. I would add that it’s really hard to be a parent, it’s really really difficult always to be a parent and this is a particularly hard time, it feels. So I really want to empathize with parents out there because they’re going to struggle with this. And on that note, I would add, it’s really hard to figure out what the literature says on this. So if you’re looking for expert’s guidance, I think that the literature is just not as strong as it could be and the messages aren’t as clear as they could be. So if you’re struggling to understand, is it good, is it bad, when is it good or when is it bad? Is it harmful? Is it hurtful? You’re not alone. We all feel a little confused and we’re doing our best as researchers to try to clarify those messages, but I sympathize as a parent to try to understand what they mean.

[Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins]: I would, say, you know – I would emphasize enough the importance of conversations, like, it’s so important to have conversations. We don’t know what our kids are doing and what they’re feeling if we don’t ask. Like, sometimes we can pick up on, you know, how they behave and how they some of the changes. But we have to have the conversations, ask the questions and listen. It’s really important for us to make sure that we recognize ourselves as the models, like they are going to take our – their cues from us. So we have to also make sure that we’re modeling how to be in healthy relationships, how to, you know, talk to one another, resolve conflict, you know, in a way that’s respectable. And lastly I guess I’ll say that, you know, all kids are different, but often if we’re if they’re struggling like we, they will need our help, and so as developmentally appropriate, you know, they may need us to help them foster and facilitate connections. And so whether that is making a strong suggestion, scheduling it yourself or doing it together with them and helping them to connect or reconnect, but will – it will be our role and we don’t want to just kind of throw our hands up and say, you know, they’re old enough, they should be able to do it. But we have to recognize when we need to jump in and help them. So I would, I think those are the three things that I think that would leave us with. 

[Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad]: Well, I would like to echo each of your sentiments, incredible recommendations and also add that we need to acknowledge that this landscape is rapidly evolving and we’re it’s challenging to navigate that as our children are also changing, and we have these simultaneous changes that are going on. And, so, I really am so grateful for the expertise that each of you bring, and I’d like to turn it back to Kris to wrap up our session.

[Kris Perry]: Thank you, Julianne, and the entire panel for this thoughtful discussion on the intersection of youth media use, social behaviors, and the psychological state of loneliness in children today. If you found today’s webinar insightful, help us keep the conversation going. Your donations support future Ask the Experts webinars. You can just scan the QR code on the screen or visit childrenandscreens.org.