Provide names of other journalists involved.
This assignment came from Catherine Cooper Nellist, the managing editor of Pediatric News.
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Feb-11
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
This story explores the potential long-term effects of social media on the development and behavior of today’s children and adolescents. Since social media have revolutionalized the way children learn about the world and communicate with each other, it’s a question worth asking as this is unchartered territory.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
I included the most up-to-date statistics available from the Kaiser Family Foundation about how young people are currently using social media in their daily lives. I also referred to a 2005 book by author Steven Johnson (“Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Making Us Smarter”), which suggests that IQ scores have improved in several different around the world in recent years, likely because youngsters are rehearsing the kind of skills required for IQ tests when they play computer games.
Explain types of human sources used.
I conducted phone interviews with four experts in the field, including three pediatricians and one neuroscientist.
Results:
While there is no way to tell for sure what kind of impact routine use of social media will have on current chilldren and adolescents as they become adults, experts interviewed for this story expressed both hope and caution. For example, one expert is hopeful that Facebook and other social media sites “can be used in positive ways by kids who are trying to understand themselves, to understand that they’re not alone in their challenges and struggles growing up.” Another expert worried that children and adolescents who spend too much time on special media may be compromising the proper development of certain cognitive skills. The result, she offered, “could be an infantalizing of the brain, that we are going to create a generation of Peter Pans who live in a world that is a literal one, dominated by sensory content over cognitive significance, a world where what you see is what you get.”
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
N/A.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Since no one really knows for sure what kind of long-term effect the routine use of social media will have on today’s children and adolescents as they become adults, this involved asking the physician experts to do some “crystal-balling,” to project what the long-term impact might be based on their understanding of how youngsters develop. The resulting article was a conversation of potential good and bad effects. This demonstrates, I think, that you can write about a weighty topic like this in a balanced way if you seek out the right experts and ask the right questions.