#55. What Do Kids at a Center for Self-Directed Education Do on Their Smartphones?

A Guest Post from Ben Draper at the Macomber Center

Dear friends,

When we see kids with their heads down looking at their smartphones, we often think the worst. But really, we don’t know what they’re doing. There are a few systematic surveys that give us some ideas, and those reveal that we are often mistaken in our “worst” assumptions. The Internet is the greatest educational invention in the history of humanity. The smartphone allows you, me, and the teenagers we know to carry that remarkable tool around in our pocket, which we can’t do with the desktop or laptop, and use it for all sorts of useful and not so useful purposes.

In this letter, with his permission, I am reprinting a blog post that Ben Draper, director of the Macomber Center for Self-Directed Education in Framingham, Massachusetts, wrote after he asked groups of the students there about their smartphone use. This is a setting where kids all day have lots of options about what they can do and lots of friends with whom to do it. So, they are not leashed in the ways that kids in conventional schools are.

Ben would be the first to admit that his little investigation does not meet the criteria of rigorous science, but I find it to be an intriguing first look at the question of how kids who have true freedom use their smartphones. I’d love to see a more systematic study of that, but this is a teaser.

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Social Media and Mental Health in a Self-directed Education Community By Ben Draper

Discussion Group at Macomber Center. Photo by Denise Geddes

Recently I was sitting down at the end of the Macomber Center common room where all the comfortable chairs and couches are. I pulled out my phone so I could respond to an email I had received from a parent. Sitting around me on the couches were seven teenagers who also had their phones out. Suddenly I started to feel self-conscious.

What if a parent walked in at that very moment? They might think, “It’s bad enough that all these teenagers are staring at their phones, but Ben is a staff member. Doesn’t he have something more important to do?”

In fact, I was emailing with parents, an essential part of my job. But how would they know that? I probably looked like I was scrolling on social media, just like the teenagers I was sitting with. There is still something about these handheld mobile devices we all carry around with us now which, regardless of what we might be doing on them, make it look like we are being helplessly manipulated by our algorithms.

Then something occurred to me: if smartphones make everyone look like they are scrolling, maybe my assumption about what the teens were doing on their phones was also wrong. I had assumed that while I was doing something “important” on my phone, they, like most teenagers with smartphones these days, were likely looking at TikTok or Instagram. I decided to do an impromptu survey. I asked each of the seven teenagers, one by one, what they were doing on their phones.

One was editing music she had created. One was using a stock market simulator which allowed him to gain knowledge and skills needed for investing and trading without the risk of losing real money. Another, a kid who has been obsessed with trains, planes and automobiles since he was little, was using a train simulator to learn about city planning. Next, there was a girl who competes in horse shows and was watching a video of her performance from the day before. She was analyzing it to see what she could do differently next time to achieve a higher score. Then there was a kid who has become very accomplished in Martial arts and was watching tutorials for a particular combination he was trying to master. Finally, the last two girls sheepishly admitted to playing games which they clearly felt were silly but enjoyable nonetheless. One was playing a game where you tend to your virtual farm and the other was playing a game where you tend to your virtual family. Not a single one was scrolling on social media. Instead, they were all pursuing their interests in a way that digital technology has made easier over the last 20 years.

Now I was even more curious. Had I just happened to catch these kids at the right moment or is social media use among teens at the Macomber Center significantly lower than average? With all the talk these days about kids spending too much time on their smartphones, perhaps it would be worth investigating this further. So I invited anyone who was interested to come and join a discussion about social media and to answer some questions for a blog post I was thinking of writing.

This time the group was slightly larger. It consisted of twelve kids altogether; one thirteen year old, one fourteen year old, six fifteen year olds, three sixteen year olds, and one seventeen year old. Only four out of the twelve said they use social media. When I asked the others why they are not on it, they said things like “don’t need it”, “not interested,” and “don’t really care about it.” We have never restricted or limited social media use at the Center, but I couldn’t help wondering if their parents were imposing limits or restrictions on it from their end. However, they said the choice to stay off social media was theirs and not their parents, and that they could be on it if they wanted.

The four kids who do use social media all gave the same answer when asked how much time they spend on it: usually no more than an hour a day, mostly in the morning before their friends arrive at the Center. Once their friends are there, they said, there are many other better things to do.

Why aren’t they more like other kids their age? A couple of them said they believe that kids in regular school are surrounded by other kids on social media so they feel pressure to be in the know. “So why doesn’t that happen here?" I asked, “Since some of you are on it, why doesn’t it spread to the rest of you?” “I go on Reddit because I enjoy it,” one of them responded. “I can discuss niche interests that I can’t discuss with my friends, but I’m happy for my friends who aren’t on Reddit. People say terrible things on Reddit. So I would never try to get a friend to join it.”

This led them into a conversation about the relative levels of toxicity on various social media platforms, and then into a sophisticated discussion of how negative online social dynamics function.

Despite the fact that the majority of them are not on social media, they all seemed to be well-informed about online culture. They are clearly not being sheltered from the digital world they are growing up in. They just seem to have a different relationship to it than other kids their age.

At this point I felt like someone should be sticking up for social media, so I asked if any of them had anything good to say about it. One of them said they use Instagram to show and sell their jewelry. Another said that he likes to discuss music online because he likes a lot of bands that his friends are not interested in. Someone else said that he plays online games that his friends here don’t play, so he likes to talk about those games with people online who know what he’s talking about.

Finally, I said, “But what about scrolling? Don’t any of you ever just feel like looking at Instagram reels?” They seemed to feel that scrolling on social media is a pretty benign activity. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is not particularly fulfilling. One of them said that they are not on Instagram or TikTok because they know themselves well enough to know that it wouldn’t be good for them. Another said that if you can do it without getting sucked into it, then it can be a harmless form of entertainment.

When I asked those who are on Instagram and TikTok why they don’t get sucked into what they referred to as “doom scrolling”, they said that they just don’t let themselves get sucked in. One said he never goes on social media if there are other people around to talk to or do things with. He said he always prefers to do something “real” with his friends if the option exists. Another said that there is nothing in the world he would rather be doing at any given time than spending time with his friends, which is why he doesn’t use social media when he’s at the Center. But it is also why he plays online games when he is at home, to connect with his friends when he has to be away from them.

These kids seem to be more aware of themselves and how they respond to the positive and negative aspects of being online than are many adults. This confirmed something that I have always believed about self-directed education generally, namely that trusting children to learn for themselves how to manage danger, whether that be the physical danger of climbing a tree, the social danger of being emotionally hurt, or the online danger of stumbling into a toxic exchange with strangers or wasting an entire day doing something mind numbing, is the best way to help children gain self-knowledge, mastery and confidence.

We hear a lot lately about how social media is largely to blame for the disturbingly high rates of anxiety and depression among teens. When you walk into the Macomber Center, what you see is a lot of happy, well adjusted, teenagers, and when you learn that their social media use is low to non-existent, you may think that you have just discovered why they are so happy and healthy. But it seems to me to be the other way around: it’s not that they are happy because they don’t use a lot of social media, but that they don’t use a lot of social media because they are happy. One thing I heard expressed over and over, in one form or another, was that these kids love being together at the Center and that they have very full lives here. There are a lot of fun and interesting things they are involved in together and social media does not have much place in it. If anything, it can get in the way. One kid said that he doesn’t go on social media when his friends are around and available to do things together because he is afraid he might miss something.

My colleague Vanessa Niro told me that since she has been working here her views on allowing kids on social media have changed. As an outdoor educator for over a decade, she used to think that social media was bad for kids. But after seeing how kids regulate their own use of digital technology at the Center, she has come to believe that social media is not inherently bad for kids. When I asked why she believes these kids are better at regulating their social media use than kids in other environments, she explained it this way: In conventional schooling there’s very little time for organic and authentic social connection. Developmentally, kids and especially teenagers need a lot of time to socialize. When that internal need is frustrated, kids are going to reach for social media as a way to fill that void. But that’s not what social media is for. Social media cannot fulfill our basic human needs for community, friendship, and socializing. When it is used by people as a substitute for these basic needs, they will have a hard time self-regulating. The kids at the Macomber Center might use social media as a way to explore various interests and connect with other people who share those same interests. But they are not using it to fill a basic human need because that need is already being met more authentically.

Kids who grow up in a self-directed education community like the Macomber Center are given the time and space they need to figure out who they are and what is important to them. They are able to delve deeply into their own interests, develop deep and meaningful social connections, and create rich and fulfilling lives together. It is not so surprising that they don't have a lot of interest in or time for social media.

Sadly, many teens today do not have the time or freedom to create meaningful, satisfying lives for themselves. Their lives are designed and managed by adults. It is no wonder why many teens in today's society would want to spend every free moment on their smartphone, where they can have an experience which is not curated, controlled, surveilled and judged by adults. Now of course we hear people calling for no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16 and not allowing phones into schools. It seems cruel to blame teens’ smartphone use for their unhappiness. We should be providing them with the time and space to develop authentic community and self-determination instead.

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Further Thoughts

Thank you, Ben! And thank you, Macomber students who took the time to answer Ben’s questions!

And readers, what do you think? We know this is not a rigorous scientific study, but, for what it is, what do you think? Do you agree with Ben’s and Vanessa’s thoughts about why kids who have time and space in the physical world to socialize and play would be able to regulate their smartphone use well? I’m also wondering if kids at regular schools may be using their smartphones in more useful and well-regulated ways than we usually give them credit for.

Share your thought in the Comments section here. If you have asked teens yourself about their smartphone uses, what did you find? This Substack series is, in part, a forum for thoughtful discussion. I greatly value readers’ contributions, even when they disagree with me, and sometimes especially when they do. You will notice in reading comments on previous letters that everyone here is polite. Your questions and thoughts will contribute to the value of this letter for me and other readers.

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With respect and best wishes,

Peter

ps: If you wish to see Ben Draper’s original blog post, click here.