RESOURCES
Media Smarts
from Canada’s Centre for Digital Media Literacy
Parent handout: https://mediasmarts.ca/parents
Canadian Pediatrics Society
Caring for Kids handout: https://caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/behavior-and-development/screen-time-and-digital-media
Report: https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/screen-time-and-preschool-children
Posters: https://cps.ca/uploads/tools/CPS_DigitalMediaPoster-EN.pdf
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
Parent handout: https://www.camh.ca/-/media/files/youthfamilyinteractive-onlinebrochure-pdf.pdf
Report https://kmb.camh.ca/ggtu/knowledge-translation/youth-smartphones-and-social-media-use
Canadian Centre for Child Protection
protectchildren.ca
Internet Watch Foundation
iwf.org.uk
Unplugged Canada
unpluggedcanada.com
Screenagers
screenagersmovie.com/resources
Books, Videos & Articles
Parent Resources
🔗 Clipping/Link 📚 Book 🔊 Audio 🤝 Organizations 📺 Video
ADDICTION
Addiction
🔗 The machine always wins. what drives our addiction to social media? - The Guardian
🔗 What it Takes to Put Your Phone Away - The New Yorker
🔗 Can we ever kick our smartphone addiction? - The Globe and Mail (Jim Balsillie and Norman Doidge)
🔗 Escaping the tech obsession - Axios
🔗 Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs With Smartphones? - The New York Times
🔗 Social Media Addiction - A Growing Problem Among Children & Teens
🔊 You can’t stop checking your phone because Silicon Valley designed it that way - CBC Radio
🔊 Why technology is addictive and what to do about it - CBC Radio
📺 Dr. K on A&E and Glow Kids Documentary Short Video - Dr. Nicholas Kardaras
📚 Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked - by Adam Alter
📚 Glow Kids - by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras
📚 Man Interrupted - by Philip Zimbardo & Nikita Coloumbe
📚 Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked - by Adam Alter
🤝 Game Quitters - the largest support community for video game addiction.
🤝 Legal Advocacy: socialmediavictims.org
Gambling
🔗 ‘But Mom, Video Games Are My Job’ - The New York Times
🔗 Who is getting rich off of Fortnite - CNN Business
🔗 'Ban kids from loot box gambling in games' - BBC News
🔊 MBL: In-game purchases - BBC Money Box
🔊 Are loot boxes part of the video game or illegal gambling? - CBC Radio Spark
Pornography
📚 Man Interrupted - by Philip Zimbardo & Nikita Coloumbe
🔗 Girlsdoporn offline after losing legal battle - BBC News
🔗 The Tech Friend from The Washington Post – iPhone porn
🔗 AI-generated child sex abuse images targeted with new laws – BBC News
🔊 Pornhub blocks access over new age verification laws - The Current with Matt Galloway
Substance abuse (drugs, vaping)
🔗 How Juul Hooked a Generation on Nicotine - The New York Times
🔗 Teen vaping rates double in Ontario in just two years - The Toronto Star- Robert Cribb
🔗 Promised Canada-wide ban on vaping flavours increasingly unlikely, health groups warn – CBC News
🔊 This boy died after taking drugs he got on Snapchat. Now his parents are suing | CBC Radio
🔊 The Inquiry - Is vaping safe? - BBC World Service
🤝 Truth Initiative - Nonprofit public health organization dedicated to making tobacco use a thing of the past.
BEHAVIOUR & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Anxiety
📚 The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Attention disorders
🔗 Centre for Attention Studies | King's College London
🔊 “The War for Your Attention” hosted by Radio Atlantic
🔊 What ‘attention capitalism’ is doing to our minds — and politics - interview with journalist and author Chris Hayes
📚 The Sirens' Call - by Chris Hayes
Behaviour disorders: erratic, reckless, cruelty
🔗 Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? by Jean Twenge - The Atlantic
🔗 Possible tech- induced cognitive behaviour disorders - Information Is Beautiful
🔊 Disposable Youth by Henry Giroux
📺 Being Thirteen - Video Documentary by CNN Anderson Cooper
Boys and Men
🔗 Sir Gareth Southgate: Boys need role models not gaming and porn – BBC News
🔗 What schools should do now the manosphere thinks it’s back in charge – EduResearch Matters
🔗 'Your face looks grotesque': How looksmaxxing can harm young men and boys – CBC News
🔗 After Adolescence: What TV Gets Right (and Wrong) About Masculinity and Femininity – Screenagers Blog
🔗 A beloved skier, an audacious jump and the complex grief left behind – Washington Post
🔗 Tate-Pilled Boys Are a Problem for Schools – The NYTimes
🔗 Raising Boys: What 'Adolescence' (Netflix) Reveals – Happy Families Australia
🔊 Lost Boys – with Anthony Scaramucci and Scott Galloway, podcast
🔊 Adolescence: what teen boys really think of girls, influencers and porn - The Guardian podcast
📚 Lost Boys: The State of the Nation – Centre for Social Justice, UK
Bullying
🔗 This First Nation lost a 10-year-old girl to suicide. The community is speaking out about it – CBC News
Child Development
🔗 ‘Bad Influence’ and ‘The Devil In the Family’ Highlight the Dark Side of Kid Influencers – The NY Times
🔗 Smartphones Are Damaging Our Kids - by Jean M. Twenge
🔗 Teens Are Forgoing a Classic Rite of Passage – The Atlantic
🔊 ‘Our Kids Are the Least Flourishing Generation We Know Of’ – The Ezra Klein Show podcast
📚 iGen book – by Jean M. Twenge
📚 i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media Are Changing Our Brains, Our Behavior, and the Evolution of Our Species – by Dr. Mari Swingle
Education Impediments
🔊 Bad behaviour in the classroom: What does it look like now? – CBC Ontario Today with Amanda Pfeffer
🔗 Quebec to impose full ban on cellphones in schools – CBC News
🔗 Proposed 'bell to bell' cellphone ban for New York public schools draws mixed reaction – abc7newyork.com
🔗 The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected - The New York Times
🔗 Mocked, Filmed, Excluded: The Dark Side of Phones in School – Screenagers blog
🔗 Screens Have Taken Over Classrooms. Even Students Have Had Enough – Wall Street Journal
Fake News and Disinformation
🔗 DisinfoWatch: Canadian 2025 Election Update
🔗 Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Sprint to Remake Meta for the Trump Era – NY Times
MENTAL HEALTH
Depression / Mental Health / Loneliness
🔊 How Screens Trap Teens In Depression – Screenagers Podcast, with Jean Twenge
🔗 The Anti-Social Century – The Atlantic
🔗 Boys Get Everything, Except the Thing That’s Most Worth Having – NY Times
📺 Alone Together - Ted Talk w/ Sherry Turkle
🔊 Alone Together - NPR w/ Sherry Turkle
📚 Alone Together - by Sherry Turkle
🔗 OECD Children and Young People’s Health Mental Health in the Digital Age - OECD
🔗 Smartphones, tablets causing mental health issues in kids as young as two - New Zealand Herald
🔊 Depression, anxiety and social media - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
📺 Being Thirteen - Video Documentary by CNN Anderson Cooper
📚 Girls on the Edge - by Dr. Leonard Sax
🤝 Child Mind
🤝 Screenagers (Dr. Delaney)
Physical self harm
🔗 The Crisis in Youth Suicide - The New York Times
🔗 45% of self-harm, suicide attempts involve teens, young adults – The Korean Herald
🔗 This First Nation lost a 10-year-old girl to suicide. The community is speaking out about it – CBC News
Radicalisation (misogyny, politics, religion, world order)
🔗 RCMP asks for help handling troubling number of kids radicalizing online – CBC News
🔗 Alleged leaders of child exploitation cult known as 764 arrested, charged – CBC News
🔗 Shut vile death video site, families say, as Ofcom gets new powers – BBC News
MEDICAL/PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Attachment to peers rather than family
🔊 Online Behaviour, Real Life Consequences: The Unfolding of a Social Media Scandal - NPR Podcast
Communications skills loss, verbal and written
📺 Being Thirteen - Video Documentary by CNN Anderson Cooper
📺 Reclaiming Conversation - TVO Sherry Turkle
Image & identity interference- influencers : Looksmaxing (male)
🔗 'Your face looks grotesque': How looksmaxxing can harm young men and boys – CBC News
🔗 'Chubby filter' pulled from TikTok after user backlash – BBC News
Medical Related (Endocrine disruption, vision, hearing, brain development)
🔊 Living in a bubble: The headphone revolution - BBC Audio, The Documentary Podcast
🔗 Time for a view on screen time - Dr. Aric Sigman
🔗 What Exactly Is Your Tablet Doing to Your Kid’s Brain? - The Observer
🔗 Screen-based media associated with structural differences in brains of young children - Science Daily
🔗 Why half the world may need glasses by 2050 - BBC World Service
📺 Being Thirteen - Video Documentary by CNN Anderson Cooper
🔊 MRIs show screen time linked to lower brain development in preschoolers - CNN Health
🔊 Your brain on digital technology - CBC Radio Ideas
📚 The Teenage Brain - by Dr. Frances E. Jensen
📚 The Shallows - by Nicholas Carr
📚 Proust and the Squid - by Maryanne Wolf
📚 Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital World - by Maryanne Wolf
🔗 Cellphone in your pocket? CBC's Marketplace investigates why you might reconsider - CBC The Current
🤝 World Health Organisation (WHO)
🤝 Canadians for Safe Technology (C4ST)
🤝 WEEP Initiative
🤝 Dr. Magda Havas
PRIVACY & SECURITY
Predators / Human trafficking
🔗 Video Games and Online Chats Are ‘Hunting Grounds’ for Sexual Predators - The New York Times
Privacy loss and under surveillance
🔗 Gaming the system – CBC News, mobile games that attract children to collect information
🔗 Be careful what you post on social media. They are listening – The Torment Nexus
🔗 Sharing of school pupils' data put on hold - BBC News
🔊 As Google for Education tools enter classrooms, some parents are asking to opt-out - CBC Spark
🔊 Sharing of school pupils' data put on hold - BBC News
🤝 I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes - The New York Times
🔊 As Google for Education tools enter classrooms, some parents are asking to opt-out - CBC Spark
🤝 Privacy by Design - Ann Couvkian
🤝 The Privacy Project - The New York Times
Sextortion
🔗 The next battleground for sex education: safe sexting - The Globe and Mail
🔗 Girls Sharing Sexy Selfies - Psychology Today, Leonard Sax