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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Amelia Gentleman

The social media ban sceptic: are we getting it wrong on kids, tech and mental health?

Wearing a black halterneck top, she poses for a picture with her arms in front of her torso. She stands on a wraparound balcony outside a modern building, with trees in the background
‘I’m nobody’s friend in this fight other than kids’’ … Candice Odgers at the University of California, Irvine. Photograph: Jessica Pons/The Guardian

The quickest way to make being online safer for children and teens would be to kick all adult men off the internet, the Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers believes. Men are the biggest perpetrators of sextortion and most likely to spread misinformation, she says.

Odgers is not recommending this as a policy for governments to adopt: “That would be crazy, right? It would be unfair.” But she is on a drive to puncture the prevailing narrative that the best way to address online harms is a social media ban for teenagers.

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