Quick Read:
- Minimal evidence on younger children (under 12s) and lack of research for under 5s.
- Huge missed opportunity for longitudinal data tracking mental health outcomes as technologies emerge.
- Most technology policy focuses on safety and harm reduction, not on promoting mental health and wellbeing.
- Limited research on child screen use in the global south, despite being the fastest growing population segment.
- Need for research on impacts of parent’s technology use on children’s mental health.
The new child and youth mental health report sheds light on the scale of our global knowledge gaps on the correlation between childhood technology use and childhood mental health impacts.
Over the past decade, mental health conditions in children and adolescents have seen a significant rise across all countries and incomes.
The World Health Organization estimates one in seven 10-19 year olds worldwide experience a mental disorder, and that a third of conditions emerge by age 14.
“It’s astonishing that we’re not doing more to understand this issue,” says Marija Manojlovic, executive director of Safe Online, who released the new findings at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
“We know that children’s technology use is increasing, and we’re past the point of no return. Technology is embedded into almost everything we do. But we don’t really know what the long-term impacts are for children and adolescents. Most research on the topic is speculative.
“Most shockingly – there are huge gaps in research on the impact for under-5s when we know children as young as 2 are using phones and tablets. At a time when governments, like the UK, are developing screentime guidelines for pre-schoolers and parents are seeking guidance on technology use – we must have better evidence to help navigate these critical issues.
“We know that mental health conditions for under-18s have been rising for a decade but we don’t have the longitudinal research to understand the relationship with digital technologies in depth. This is a particular area of interest for me,” says Marija Manojlovic.
Marija has a strong track record of raising funds for research and developing tools to help prevent thorny issues like these.
As Executive Director, she has led Safe Online to raise and deploy over US$100m over the past 10 years for research and tools to prevent online child sexual abuse and exploitation, and she’s on track to do it again, this time with child mental health in mind.
Safe Online is launching Weave Wellbeing, a pioneering fund to mobilize the scale of financing needed to tackle this urgent issue. Marija has already secured US$2m seed funding from Iconiq Impact.
