Smartphone and social media harms: why we failed in our duty of care

Abstract

The Netflix series Adolescence is hard to escape. One of the judges at our South Asia Awards in Delhi last weekend told me that his family were gripped by the drama about a teenage schoolboy in England who, influenced by the “manosphere,” murders a female student.1 While the universally acclaimed series might have further explored the harms posed by the manosphere (doi:10.1136/bmj.p2947),2 it makes us confront some difficult issues, themes that resonate powerfully around the globe. One of these is smartphone use by children and the access it gives them to social media. Where should we stand on this? Many of us began by viewing social media and smartphones as a force for good. The benefits, we imagined, outweighed the harms. And perhaps that’s still true …