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Teens and Screens: Opening Statement: ACM Ubiquity Symposium on Teens and Screens
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Ubiquity
Volume 2025, Number August (2025), Pages 1-3
Ubiquity Symposium: Teens and Screens: Opening Statement: ACM Ubiquity Symposium on Teens and Screens
Peter J. Denning
DOI: 10.1145/3760263
In 2025, teens use the Internet to find community, gather information, play games, listen to podcasts, participate in livestreams, and more. Many adults, parents, and lawmakers are concerned about the amount of time young people spend online, fearing negative effects on their mental health. This symposium presents four perspectives on this issue.
Is the internet poisoning my child? This anguished cry has echoed in many countries. Concerned about a rising tide of teenage mental health cases, parents are questioning social media and the Internet and the motives of the big tech companies promoting new technologies for children. Jonathan Haidt, an ethicist and social psychologist, gave voice to the concern in his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin, 2024). The Ubiquity editors found themselves in general agreement that internet technologies are producing a profound shift in the way younger people are seeing the world and interacting in it, but they did not agree on whether this is a problem that requires drastic action. We decided to share our perspectives with our readers.
Kemal Delic and Jeff Johnson open with an overview of reactions in many countries, showing that the concern is widespread and summarizing legislative and regulatory responses. Michael Quinn focuses on the harms that AI companions may cause to minors who become dependent on them. Jeff Riley analyzes the arguments for and against restrictions on what young people can access and concludes that a hands-off approach may be better. Espen Andersen gives an example of the positive benefits a massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game had on a medically disabled young person who created strong communal bonds via the internet.
We hope this short overview of different aspects of this issue will be useful to you in understanding where you want to take your stand.
Peter J. Denning
Editor-in-Chief, ACM Ubiquity Magazine
Author
Peter J. Denning is a Distinguished Professor of computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is a past president of ACM (1980-82). He received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award in 2021. His most recent books are Computational Thinking (with Matti Tedre, MIT Press, 2019) and Navigating a Restless Sea (with Todd Lyons, Waterside, 2024).
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