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The next time you go to Las Vegas, you’ll notice that there are no 13-year-olds in the casinos. The reason is not because a series of longitudinal studies proved to the satisfaction of the gaming industry that gambling causes anxiety and depression. Rather, there are no 13-year-olds in casinos because we know that the environment is designed to exploit them. Research like the Manchester study can offer important insights into narrow questions. But it would be a mistake to rely on it to set policy. For that you need the full picture, and the full picture of children’s experience on social media over the past decade is damning.

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The next time you go to Las Vegas, you’ll notice that there are no 13-year-olds in the casinos. The reason is not because a series of longitudinal studies proved to the satisfaction of the gaming industry that gambling causes anxiety and depression. Rather, there are no 13-year-olds in casinos because we know that the environment is designed to exploit them. Research like the Manchester study can offer important insights into narrow questions. But it would be a mistake to rely on it to set policy. For that you need the full picture, and the full picture of children’s experience on social media over the past decade is damning.
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Casey Newton (caseynewton@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 28-Jan-2026 11:19:14 JST Casey Newton

Authors of a big new study on teens and social media say that Australia-style bans won't help. But that misses the mounting evidence of direct harms that platforms cause countless kids: https://www.platformer.news/social-media-screen-time-manchester-study-haidt/

In conversation about 9 months ago from mastodon.social permalink