Explore every episode of the podcast Screen Addiction Podcast

At the recent landmark Los Angeles social media addiction trial, the court ruled that addictive “features” in Instagram—like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations—addicted a young woman during her childhood and contributed to her serious mental health problems. While individual design features do pose risks to kids, there is a much darker truth essentially unknown to parents and even health experts: Social media corporations are using an entire secret science to addict kids.

Richard Freed’s books:

Better Than Real Life: The Secret Science Addicting Kids to Screens—and How to Save Childhood

Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age

Richard Freed’s website

Website: RichardFreed.com

Newly released court documents from a class action lawsuit on social media addiction expose Common Sense Media and its affiliates to be marketers of social media to kids—not protectors of their health. This means that our nation’s most prominent organization providing health guidance about kids’ screens is misleading parents and putting a generation of young people at risk. 

I follow the money to show how Common Sense Media is leveraging its trusted name to pocket millions from Silicon Valley and promote harmful social media and other screens to kids. It does this while promising to be our faithful friend. I describe actions for parents and schools to protect youth from Common Sense Media’s unsafe actions to instead provide kids a healthy and successful childhood.

Articles from this Episode
● Christina Dinur’s “How to Identify Propaganda From Big Tech When You See It”
● Emily Cherkin’s “5 Organizations Who Take $$$ From Tech That You Should Know About”
● Denise Champney’s “The Educational Technology Industrial Complex Timeline” 

Richard Freed’s books:

• Better Than Real Life: The Secret Science Addicting Kids to Screens—and How to Save Childhood 
• Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age

Richard Freed’s website

Website: RichardFreed.com

Welcome to the Screen Addiction Podcast where I reveal the secret Silicon Valley science addicting our kids to screens. I am Dr. Richard Freed, a child and adolescent psychologist trained at Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, an author featured in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and the proud father of two daughters. 

Upcoming episodes expose that the social media and video games industry claims are just fun places for kids to connect and play are purpose-built by world-leading brain scientists to steal kids away from all things real world to spend their lives staring at screens. I’ll also uncover how leading child health organizations promising to protect kids from unhealthy screens are betraying your trust as they take industry money, promote kids’ screens, and undermine their health. Instead, I’ll describe science-based recommendations that promote kids’ health, happiness, and success in this digital age.

Thank you so much for your interest in the science of screen addiction!

-Richard

Website: RichardFreed.com