Dr Megan Reynolds

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A new study from the Anti-Bullying Centre at Dublin City University has found that international research suggests that smartphone bans have little or no impact on education, online bullying and wellbeing among students.
Read more here: launch.dcu.ie/44ueoqL

Restriction or Resilience? Smartphone Bans in Schools: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Students - DCU Anti-Bullying Centre The following key findings arose from a review of international research and a qualitative study of students’ experiences of a smartphone ban in schools

At @dublincityuni.bsky.social, we recently published findings on what students in Ireland felt about smartphone bans!

antibullyingcentre.ie/publication/...

Last week, our report on smartphone bans was released!

Here we share an infographic for young people to see what our major results were from the research.

#smartphoneban #phoneban #youthvoice

• There are more pressing issues for students than smartphone use in schools that students were concerned about, such as school facilities and health concerns.

My hope is that the findings can be used to allow young people to have a voice on an issue that directly impacts them!

#smartphonebans

• The stricter the phone ban the more students look for ways to subvert it.

• Students indicated that they were aware of different types of harmful content online but tended to minimise risks claiming that they felt able to self-regulate this content, ask for help.

•Students’ voices have not been included in decision-making on smartphone restrictions/bans within schools and they want to have a say in decisions on this issue and other aspects of their school lives.

Here are some of the key findings from the report:

• International research suggests that smartphone bans have little or no impact on education, cyberbullying and wellbeing among students.

• Children and adolescents have access to many types of devices both in school and at home.

Restriction or Resilience? Smartphone Bans in Schools: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Students - DCU Anti-Bullying Centre The following key findings arose from a review of international research and a qualitative study of students’ experiences of a smartphone ban in schools

Our report on students experiences of smartphone bans in school is published!

I hope we can now begin to have more nuanced conversations on these bans and give agency and voice to young people on this issue.

Read here: antibullyingcentre.ie/publication/...

I'm not particularly convinced of the results for a variety of reasons - even still the research on this topic is conflicting

As a researcher, I have also wondered about the ethics of a show like this, as I know it wouldn't reach ethical standards in my job. Overall, I think we could do better for teens than exploiting them for the country's entertainment 🤷🏻‍♀️

The hypocrisy of 'Raised by the Village', the show that is not serving 'troubled' teens 'Raised by the Village' condemns children's use of social media — pure hypocrisy when we consider how we are mining them for likes on a different medium

Totally agree with this opinion piece on Raised by the Village - I really struggle to understand why it's still on TV.

I find the programme is explotative and this season seems to push a particular narrative that blames teens social media use which helps noone

www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Participant flyer that ask if anyone aged 18-24 years old would like to complete an anonymous online survey about cyberbullying. Participants will be asked to complete a series of questions about social dominance, empathy, morla disengagement and empathy. There is a QR code to scan to access the survey link.

Are you aged 18-24 yes old?

Please consider completing our survey on cyberbullying!

Survey link: dcusurveys.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

#cyberbullying #research #psychology

Delighted to share that my paper 'Rethinking Sexual Trauma Research' has been published.

The paper explores how RECs could review their processes as survivors of sexual trauma do not inherently find participating in this research distressing.

Paper available here: doi.org/10.1177/0886...

Participants Needed 📣

Are you a student in higher education aged 18-25 in Ireland?

If so, please consider taking part in this short survey to us gain insights into cyberbullying and mental health.

Please scan the QR code for info or click the link below

dcusurveys.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

What Smartphones are doing to kids' mental health is NOT terrifying (no matter what a child psychiatrist says) The Guardian has done another shoddy article about why smartphones are definitely bad. But what's really 'terrifying' is how many apparent experts are so keen to join in with them.

What Smartphones are doing to kids' mental health is NOT terrifying (no matter what a child psychiatrist says)

theneuroscienceofeve...

My response to the Guardian's latest 'Phones are destroying the children!!' article. As ever, it's... problematic

#Phones #screens #brains

This is quite appalling behaviour from an academic with a massive platform to state that a small groups is actively burying research from him.

The article itself clearly outlines that there is expert consensus that we cannot demonstrate a causal relationship between social media and harm

Researchers test impact of school smartphone ban in new Channel 4 documentary Psychologists at the University of York will test the impact that smartphones have on children’s behaviour in a new two-part documentary series for Channel 4.

This documentary is showing on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm.

Very interested to see what this 'experiment' has found 🕵‍♀️

www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Delighted to be attending the Supporting and Responding to Staff: Research Insights and Practical Skills" event in Croke Park.

Congrats to @SusanLagdon @ngoziad and @ActiveConsent team on their report!

Estimating adolescent mental health in the general population: current challenges and opportunities Louise Black, Margarita Panayiotou, Neil Humphrey Adolescence is a period of change and increased mental health difficulties, which are important for lifetime outcomes. Adolescent mental health is therefore an active research area, with large samples often drawing on self-report general measures (ie, not disorder-specific or focused on a narrow outcome). We argue that these measures have a key role in our understanding of issues such as prevalence, antecedents, prevention, and intervention, however, measurement has been given little attention and high-quality measures do not tend to be available or used. We offer insights into historical and psychometric challenges that have contributed to current problems and highlight the implications of relying on poor measures, which at their worst can be biased and unethical. We make recommendations for research and practice on selecting measures and improving the evidence base and make a call to action to reject low-quality measurement in this field.

For anyone working in adolescent mental health: I *really* recommend reading this important paper about the most commonly used questionnaires (inc SDQ)

In short: most of them have poor psychometric properties, so do we even know what they are measuring?

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

(cont)

Introducing myself:

1. I'm a postdoc at DCU Anti-Bullying Centre
2. PhD is in sexual violence experiences amongst university students
3. Conducting research into smartphone bans and youth social media use
4. Based in Dublin, Ireland

#psychology #sexualviolenceresearch #smartphonebans

Adolescents haven't been consulted on this ban, nor with other bans on smartphones in different countries. It's time we start listening to adolescents and invite them to be apart of decisions that directly impact them. It's really the bare minimum.

#socialmediaban #smartphones #youthmentalhealth

So it begs the question what's the point of the ban and who is this really for?

It's clear that some adults or governments do not understand the role of social media in young people's lives and that's simply because no one has bothered to consult adolescents and hear their lived experiences.

Australian social media ban on under-16s approved by Senate The ban aims to reduce "harms" on children and will take at least a year to implement, the PM says.

Extremely disappointing that a social media ban has been adopted in Australia after being rushed through, without an appropriate consultation period.

There's no conclusive reseach based evidence that shows bans are effective in achieving what they are intended for.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

I don't know if saying a man has been revolutionary for women's health is the take you think it is.... #rtept

I would agree with you wholeheartedly! It's a complex area and social media does play a role but unfortunately research hasn't really been able to shed light on it. Kudos to the author of that piece who pulled all the info together as it's very helpful to see 👏🏻

Young people were becoming more anxious long before social media – here’s the evidence Here’s why I disagree with Jonathan Haidt. Young people have been on a trajectory of worse mental health since before the advent of social media.

Higher recommend that anyone interested in the ongoing debate on social media and youth mental health reads this piece.

It calls into question the popular narrative that smartphones or social media causes harm to youth.

theconversation.com/young-people...

#youthmentalhealth #smartphonebans

Maybe, and just hear me out for a moment... National health / human rights / technology legislation shouldn't be based on a poorly researched pop psych book?

Social media ban for under-16s 'on the table' says UK government The tech secretary Peter Kyle also said he wanted an

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is absolutely no point in talking about social media bans for children unless you are also talking about how to build digital literacy skills. I just don’t think they’re the right solution for the problem at hand. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Looking forward to speaking at the National Parent Council Education Conference this Saturday (23rd November) in Kinsale!

I'll be sharing perspectives from adolescents on #smartphonebans!

#socialmedia #smartphoneban #youthmentalhealth

Reflexivity is the act of examining one's own assumption, belief, and judgement systems, and thinking carefully and critically about how these influence the research process. The practice of reflexivity confronts and questions who we are as researchers and how this guides our work. It is central in debates on objectivity, subjectivity, and the very foundations of social science research and generated knowledge. Incorporating reflexivity in the research process is traditionally recognized as one of the most notable differences between qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Qualitative research centres and celebrates the participants' personal and unique lived experience. Therefore, qualitative researchers are readily encouraged to consider how their own unique positionalities inform the research process and this forms an important part of training within this paradigm. Quantitative methodologies in social and personality psychology, and more generally, on the other hand, have remai

"even if data are quantitative and numerical, the ways in which they are analysed and, to a greater extent, the inferences made from this analysis, will vary depending on who the researcher is."

I LOVE this paper, which talks about reflexivity in quant, not qual, research

tinyurl.com/3r3s39ty