Show Notes
Claire Coady, the Founder of the Attention Practice, and journalist and broadcaster James Wickham discuss how teenagers are coping with the social media age, and the affect it’s having on their attention spans.
Included are references to 90s lads and girls mags, prohibition and Mean Girls.
Show notes:
From 02:00-ish: BBC News: Australia is banning social media for teens. How will it work? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo
CORRECTION: YouTube is included in the ban, as is Twitch. Roblox and Discord are proactively introducing age verification in case they are included.
From 12:14 onwards: Internet Matters: Informed or Overwhelmed? Understanding the impact of news on children’s (11-17s’) well-being https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/research/impact-online-news-childrens-wellbeing/
76% of children and young people are exposed to news at least once a week. Majority in social media, but overwhelming trust in traditional media organisations.
Other sources:
04:03: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9781802063271
05:42: Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9780749924379
07:41: Dr Karen Nelson-Field, Erica Riebe, Kellie Newstead - The Emotions that Drive Viral Video (2013) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1441358213000220
08:18: Ofcom - UK child internet users (aged 8-14) spend an average of 2 hours and 59 minutes online every day (2025): https://www.ofcom.org.uk/media-use-and-attitudes/media-habits-children/top-trends-from-our-latest-look-at-uk-childrens-online-lives
09:14: Helicopter parenting - good BBC Radio 4 piece on it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3qg0ZrxRs3jgXLSpNwvht0y/are-you-over-parenting-your-children
Related story: Did the phone ban in schools work? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6rljz5w0zo
A pandemic-era article on gaming online with friends being a lifeline: https://www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20201215-how-online-gaming-has-become-a-social-lifeline
More from Can We Have Your Attention?
Claire and James discuss Aaron Sorkin’s film, The Social Reckoning, a companion to The Social Network.
You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel!
You can also watch this episode on YouTube!
Ad tech, the backbone of digital advertising, is a lucrative business. But why? Who is profiting from it? And at what cost? Claire and James are joined this week by Claire Atkin, Co-founder and CEO of the Check My Ads Institute. They discuss ad tech: what it is, how it works, why it makes money, for whom it makes money - and what the consequences are.
For the past 25 years, claims on packets of crisps have been subject to more regulation than claims in election campaigns. But that could finally be about to change. Amendments to the Representation of the People Bill promise to apply some of the UK’s strenuous - and effective - advertising standards to election advertising. We are joined by Alex Tait, ad industry veteran and founder of the non-partisan campaign organisation Reform Political Advertising, one of the groups advocating these changes. Alex, together with Benedict Pringle, set up Reform Political Advertising to change the law. What does fact-based election advertising mean in practice? How can regulation that applies to commercial brand advertising improve political trust? How long does it take to turn an idea into a law? And can turkeys really vote for Christmas?