Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing

by Emily Weinstein, Carrie James

How teens navigate a networked world and how adults can support them.

What are teens actually doing on their smartphones? Contrary to many adults’ assumptions, they are not simply “addicted” to their screens, oblivious to the afterlife of what they post, or missing out on personal connection. They are just trying to navigate a networked world. In Behind Their Screens , Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, Harvard researchers who are experts on teens and technology, explore the complexities that teens face in their digital lives, and suggest that many adult efforts to help—“Get off your phone!” “Just don’t sext!”—fall short.

Weinstein and James warn against a single-minded focus by adults on “screen time.” Teens worry about dependence on their devices, but disconnecting means being out of the loop socially, with absence perceived as rudeness or even a failure to be there for a struggling friend. Drawing on a multiyear project that surveyed more than 3,500 teens, the authors explain that young people need empathy, not exasperated eye-rolling. Adults should understand the complicated nature of teens’ online life rather than issue commands, and they should normalize—let teens know that their challenges are shared by others—without minimizing or dismissing. Along the way, Weinstein and James describe different kinds of sexting and explain such phenomena as watermarking nudes, comparison quicksand, digital pacifiers, and collecting receipts. Behind Their Screens offers essential reading for any adult who cares about supporting teens in an online world.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Education, Technology, Audiobook

240 pages, Paperback

Published August 16, 2022

Reviews

[Margot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! Well, of course I would because I am the mom of one the authors. :)
And here is why you should read this book:
My daughter Emily Weinstein and her co-author Carrie James have put ten years of research into it. It’s straightforward and easy to read. You will get a perspective of not only what the research says, but what teens have to say about the research. You will better understand and be better equipped to talk to the young people in your life about tech and social media, and will probably get some insights into your own tech use. And, if you are a teacher, school administrator, tech industry person or other type of leader, this may help you galvanize support for better ways to help our teens.
Also, if you re too busy to read it, I recommend the Audible version. (My daughter Emily reads it!)

[Seth Hogeterp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m really glad I read this book as an educator. It gave a lot of insights to help me more deeply understand my students and support them through the nuances of the technological world.

[Anna Hagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was informative and interesting, but at the end of the day, I am disgusted with what our society has become and I'm worried for my children.

[Travis A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

My daughter is 12, and has entered middle school with a phone and everything that comes with it. Before reading this I was for sure the “put your phone down and go outside” parent. After reading this I understand taking a more thoughtful approach to how and and why I limit phone usage, and know how to have more open conversations about how to drive better behaviors.

I really liked the style of this book, written as a research project instead of a self-help book. And it truly was well and deeply researched. Although I am well aware that teens use their phones to communicate with each other, I don’t think I gave them enough credit for also being aware of the dangers and pitfalls of having phones. I better realize now the extra stress this puts on them, in an already stressful time in their lives. It also reminds me how good we had it growing up in the ‘90’s.

[Suzanne Newell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must read for parents and educators of those between the ages of 10-20. As a mom, I’ve been so curious about the seemingly invisible culture of what happens between my kids and the world through (not really) vanishing snaps. Turns out, it’s more sophisticated and complex than I knew.

Since their world is so obscured for most parents, the classic plan of trying to raise the most self-confident, good humans in real life is our best shot at helping them to survive and make good-ish decisions online.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice balance after reading Anxious Generation. I love how the authors center the voices of teens and tweens.

[Heather Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a parent of tweens I am often self conscious about the few rules for phone use we have for my kids. Are my husband and I policing too much? Too little? What is right? What is wrong? This book offers no clearly defined parameters. It goes one better and provides explanations of teen phone behavior and what conversations might be most helpful for parents who want to gently aid their kids in navigating a digital social world.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating, well-researched, and insightful book is a must-read for parents of teens that will generate productive and important discussions. It was written by two leading experts on social media use and adolescent development. Although I am myself a psychologist and researcher in this field, I learned a great deal of new information and perspectives. Rather than relying on scare tactics or oversimplified perspectives, the authors center youth voices in their nuanced discussion of teens’ experiences with social media. The result is a unique, timely, and much-needed piece. The audiobook is read by author Emily Weinstein and is highly engaging.

[Chanequa Walker-Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for parents of tweens and teens. Even as a user of social media and tech, I have been concerned about my teenager’s seeming addiction to his cellphone and gaming. This book helps parents understand the social contexts and functions of teens’ texting, social media, and gaming habits. It turns out that it’s much more complicated than we often consider.

One of the surprises of the book was just how much it provided insight into my experience of social media, streaming services, and even simple video games (Solitaire anyone?) as an adult. It helped illuminate the reasons why these things can become such time suckers.

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a preteen in my house, Behind Their Screens was just the book I needed. Emily Weinstein and Carrie James do an excellent job explain the pros and cons of technology and teenagers. While for parents it can seem unsettling at times, teens are aware of the challenges that come with their devices. The authors research shows that teens want to learn to be safe in the internet and not be consumed by it. I would highly recommend reading this book if you have a teen in your life or even a tween.

Thank you to NetGalley and MIT Press for an advance reader’s copy of Behind Their Screens

[Katie Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Behind Their Screens explores the challenges that teens face in their online lives that aren’t always visible to adults. The book draws on data that co-authors Emily Weinstein and Carrie James collected from teens across the US, which they analyzed in collaboration with teen advisory groups. As a longtime collaborator of both authors, I’m confident in saying that the insights they offer about teens’ digital lives come from two researchers who know what they’re talking about and do so with empathy for both teens and parents.

You’ll learn about how easy it is for teens to fall into the "comparison quicksand” on Instagram, the stress of being left “on read” (when a message has been seen but the recipient hasn’t yet replied), the fraught dynamics involved with sending, receiving, and sharing nudes, and much, much more. The conversation keys offered at the end of the book (e.g., empathy over eye rolling, asking over assuming) are a great way for adults to engage teens in authentic conversations about the challenges they face online.

[Ronnie Ridpath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight! Also liked all the data that was collected and shared.

[Lauren R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was well researched and thought provoking. It is quite sad to be reminded of the ways technology has changed teens’ experiences growing up. That being said, much of what was written also applies to adults online and I could relate to many of the dilemmas outlined. While considering my mental wellbeing led me to delete almost social media apps (which I haven’t regretted at all) I realize that is not the answer for everyone and that the issue is more complex. However, I do think parents need to take a greater role in helping teens set boundaries. For example, I appreciate the desire to be there for friends at all hours but this isn’t a burden teens should bear. Not allowing teens to have their phones in their room at night is just a common sense rule as well as helping them understand that our role as friend is not to be a 24 hour on call therapist.

We also shouldn’t ask our kids to put limits on things they are not developmentally able to handle. The reasons a smart phone lands in the hands of preteens and young teens should be questioned. I love the book’s emphasis on listening to teens and not assuming we understand their actions (this should be how we parent in general) but we need to take a greater role in setting healthy limits. The more we stand together on this the more we combat the obsessive nature of phone use, both our own and our kids.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

The important thing about teens and screens, it seems, is that it's complicated. Junior high and high school drama have moved online, and adults have created edicts that are nonsense. The authors run into kids in dilemmas: a kid's friend is posting suicidal things to Facebook while their parent is telling them to just put their phone away: a kid is being harassed by text while also coordinating a ride home with their parent by text. What does a kid do? The authors describe a way that teens on occasion deal with someone who is harassing them for nudes: a girl can find a body that plausibly resembles hers on the internet, take a screenshot that makes it clear that it's from a website, save that for later, crop the pic to just the body or body part, send it to a few of her friends so that they can later confirm this is not her body, and then send the nude. This will get the boy to shut up. A girl can also put a watermark with the recipient's name on a nude so that if it is leaked, she will know who leaked it. But teens can also experiment with their sexuality and relationships online. Teens can communicate with each other online. When I was growing up, there was no real way to leave your house and see your friends after school unless your mom drove you because America has failed desperately at urban planning, and the only way to hang out after school was to call someone on a landline, which was frowned on because somebody else might be trying to call. Nowadays, the authors find kids socializing productively on Discord servers and gaming and social media and it's performative but so is everything else about adolescence and you can't just make kids throw their phones in the garbage. The authors found that teens are already aware of the dangers of social media, its visibility and permanence, but they do things anyway. Teens are smart but they are also dumb as hell. Kids debate amongst themselves whether posting about social justice is authentic but demanding that it is done. Each high school is a wee culture of norms and expectations. This book ends up being prescriptive because it tells adults to listen to and help teens with their specific problems, because "Put your phone down and go outside!" is comically unrealistic nowadays.

[Robin Steinberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars. One of the biggest challenges in parenting these days is helping our tweens, teens and even young adults to manage the endless connectedness of internet access, social media and smart phones. I was pleased to learn about this book from a psychologist who spoke to my youngest daughter's middle school PTO. I liked the authors' premise that adults don't entirely "get it" and that to helpfully support and communicate with our teens, we need more information, particularly information that comes directly from this current generation of tweens and teens. The information in this book is based on the authors' own research data, much of which comes directly from a study they conducted between 2017 and 2021. Much of the information was a reinforcement of things I already know or intuited in my own parenting. However, there is still much to learn. The two chapters I found the most enlightening were the one on nudes/sexting and the one on digital footprints. The authors present the information in a clear, engaging, non-judgmental way. I really appreciated that multiple times over the course of the book they emphasized the fast changing nature of what apps kids favor, and that by the time this book was published it may already be out of date. They were right, of course. For instance, I know that the app BeReal has totally taken off in the past couple of months so it isn't included in the book (which is more focused on Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram). Anyway, this was an informative, quick, insightful read. It didn't give any magic answers to the dilemmas parents and kids face about managing technology, but it provides a rich overview of what is happening behind kids' screens and gives parents/educators helpful insight into the pros and cons of the technology-heavy landscape our kids are growing up in today.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***

This is the first "parenting" book I've read that focuses on teenagers. I'm glad I read it because it's going to take me time to process the nuances involved in how teens interact with the internet and social media and I have a feeling my approach as a parent will change as I figure that out.

Case in point, the book talks about "cancel culture" and how it is used by teens and I realized that my view (absolutely for it, let's shut all the racists up) is missing a lot of context. Teens are more impulsive than adults and "canceling" can be used in unfair and malicious ways against people who don't deserve it.

Overall, my takeaway from this book is that there is a lot more anxiety around social media and the internet than I realized and today's teenagers understand the pros and cons of digital life way better than my generation. It's not a knowledge issue, but a complexity issue. Unfortunately, the book doesn't offer any clear guidance on how to help but it's a good jumping off point for figuring that out.

[Jonathan Mckay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teen Screens, Few Surprises

I learned surprisingly little from this book. It offers some useful surveys and specifics, and I like the idea of making it a teen-centered approach, but the analysis rarely cuts deep.

The strongest sections show how cancel culture becomes a social battleground for high schoolers, and how platforms themselves shape behavior—“the medium is the message.” Performative compliments as the default register online, or the way Snap streaks keep the platform alive, are more telling than the broad claims about “social media” as if it were a monolith.

Compared to The Anxious Generation, which may overshoot the evidence but at least has a clear thesis on parental concerns, Behind Their Screens spends most of its energy reminding parents that abstinence-only strategies don’t work or listing caveats about its research scope. The result is inoffensive but thin.

[Sami Danielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am in my early 20s, meaning that most of this information is not new to me in the slightest. This made it kind of a boring read for me. However, this would definitely be something I'd recommend to parents because it explains in depth how young people feel regarding social media and the internet in general.

[Hana Gabrielle (HG) Bidon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.25 stars

This book is a good start for those who aren't as familiar with the dangers and benefits of technology for teenagers. I've read a decent amount of books in this realm, so the ideas presented here aren't revolutionary or game-changing to me.

[Grace Burns · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good overview of the topic if you don't know almost anything about teens and technology, but there wasn't really anything I learned from it. For my purposes, I could have just read the first chapter and saved time but ah well.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is unintentionally funny. It is clearly written by a well-meaning, obligatorily woke, affluent woman coming from a privileged educational and societal background (after finishing the reading, a single online search revealed all of that to check out about our Harvard-educated friend). Since the author got access to a cohort of over 3,500 young people, the uninitiated might expect breakthrough data to emerge... but like every politically motivated book, the author takes so much effort to skate around any conclusion that might upset the prevailing U.S. academic progressive narrative, that nothing more than the information that is already readily available to a mildly educated person comes out.

If the book offered any relevant new insight, it would justify hearing for the thousandth time about the importance of BLM and non-binary children, but no, all the readers gets is a paid-for progressive morality lesson. The book goes into how important social media is to reaffirm the non-conformant gender identity to these kids (having just basically proven in the prior pages that it is a net-negative to all others), but evidently makes no effort to correlate how much influnce social media has in imposing this non-conformity upon children, because that would... you know... require minimal academic integrity, something that is not demanded in the U.S. scholarly world.

In order not to say that I am criticizing everything as irrelevant, some of the commentary about political pressure and sexting culture were genuinely insightful, much more so because the author actually took some discoursive liberty during those sections, which showed that the book could actually have been good had it taken a different direction (albeit one that would make the author unfortunately lose her job).

I guess it's just disappointing that in the age of massive data collection and in which studies like these are made possible by newer methodologies, these academics with access to unlimited grant money either voluntarily want or are forced to write under so many limitations.

[Steev Hise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great because it takes a research-based and balanced approach to the issue of kids and devices and social media. I've read and heard other writers who take a much more militant and absolutist approach, and who also don't seem to understand the complexities. Phones are not quite just like drugs, where there's really zero upside. There are legit benefits, socially and developmentally, to phones and online social networks, and this book lays them out, along with the dangers and risks, after years of research, surveying and talking to teenagers.

Unfortunately there's no suggestions in the book of what to do as a society, other than "listen to your kids". But I think lots of parents never will, and also many people are in such precarious situations, economically, that devices get given to kids way too early as essentially a digital pacifier. So by the time they're teens it's just ingrained into their psyche. Late-Stage Capitalism has pushed us into this situation, by creating a society of desperate people just barely getting by and without childcare options, and by destroying the education system. Some well-off parents who read this book might start listening to their kids but what about everyone else?

Finally, parenthetically - mainstream and especially conservative people often cite mass shootings as why their kids should have phones on them at all times - so kids can call and say goodbye before the shooter slaughters them. It is so sad and psychotic and just bullshit that that's used as a defense for phones. I'm happy to report that not a single teen quoted in this book ever said anything like "I need my phone so I can tell my mom that I'm about to die."

[Chris Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this book three stars, though I think it's very close to four stars. Reason being, I was looking for an alternative to The Anxious Generation, which (to me) comes off as a moral panic book of a boomer who has convinced themselves that teenagers really want the childhood of a 90's kid. I found Weinstein's book to provide some better nuance, probably because she is an actual researcher talking directly to young people about this topic.

Though it is based on a lot of helpful and good research (which I think is really important on this topic), I was hoping for a more accessible book for someone like a parent. I would recommend this book to parents of teens with the caveat that it can be a little dense with research findings. However, I'll recommend a book like this any day over a "teens are so addicted to their phones" moral panic book (sorry Jonathan Haidt)

Ultimately what I liked most about this book was that Weinstein examines the complexity of a digital world and the complexities of adolescent in a fair way. She doesn't paint in broad strokes. She gives credit to teenagers who actually understand these complexities way better than adults do. And if you can slog through, the last chapter offers some good tips for adults to help their teens set boundaries and navigate their digital worlds.

[Margot MacKay · Rating 3 out of 5]

At this writing, my daughter is 13 and in 8th grade and my son almost 11 and in fifth grade. I try to keep updated on relevant parenting books, including those about social media and technology, which also benefits me in my role as a high school English teacher. I am between three and four stars for this rating, because I am not entirely sure about the reliability and validity of the teen sample group referenced throughout the text. Moreover, this book is already about three years old, so I’m sure the examples and evidence covered are already somewhat dated and will just continue to become more so. However, I did find some good tips and conversation starters, and there are even a few chapters that I may ask my kids to listen to, or at least portions of some, and then we can go from there.

One additional thought: Consumed this title as an audiobook, and found the vocal fry speaking style of what I thought was one of the authors, but might have just been the same individual all along, to be pretty distracting. Additionally, when quoting from teen interview is, I appreciate that the authors were true to the responses, but could have done with slightly edited responses as the amount of filler speech (“like”) also proved to be quite distracting in audio format, and likely would not have been as bad had I just been reading and been able to skim over those words.

[Kory · Rating 2 out of 5]

Work in media, this topic interested me.

It’s written for the older crowd. The type of crowd who will judge social media without participating. The type of crowd who doesn’t talk to their child and instead reads the section “what your child wants you to know”. You know who knows what they want you to know? Your child!

Here’s an idea, talk to kids. Use the social media for yourself and make your own decisions. Interact with them on social media. Find out for yourself what the good and bad is. Personally, I stepped away from social media. I found the negatives outweighed the positives. There are positives.

At the core of this book is a question for me. Why are you reading this book and not having an honest conversation with the young people in your life?

[Hector · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful and informative book for parents and educators seeking a well-rounded understanding of young people’s experiences in a digital world. I’ll at admit that for the first third of the book, I almost felt like the authors were being funded by social media companies and big tech, but really they were just trying to help the reader understand the importance of cultivating agency in digital world. Just as with most things related to human development, absence, policing, and shame are not counterproductive in helping young people form their identify, digital or otherwise. Instead, the authors argue, we should shift away from assumptions and instead to a place of empathy, complexity, and support.

[Sarah Guldenbrein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book where the interview on a podcast or wherever I heard about it was kind of sufficient for my level of interest. The excellent thing they're doing here though, is complicating the narrative that teens are addicted to their phones and just restricting use is the best protection for them. The authors, with extensive input from both a teen advisory council and a big survey of teens, show that teens are worried about the same things that adults are when it comes to tech use, but also face distinct social pressures. Definitely worth a skim if you have or will someday have a kid who has a phone.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciated the many voices of teens and thoughtful questions the authors asked to dig into what the real challenges for young people are, and how adults can help support our kids. I went into this with a lot of negative feelings about teen screen time, based mainly on my dislike of the attention holding and even addictive design of so many apps and devices. It was great to see some awareness of this in teens comments, and to learn what challenges I was not yet aware of. I feel more prepared to listen to my own kid and ask better questions of them.

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to this while I worked in the yard so sometimes I wasn’t paying as close attention as was warranted. Still garnered a few important thoughts and maybe should listen again - it’s not too long. Was good to hear that social media isn’t the end all devil and that the kids might be better at navigating and have a deeper understanding than we give them credit for. Definitely not an instruction manual on what to do with your teenager, but good information. I hope they follow up on the research they felt was missing.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the issues teens are facing aren’t really news, the authors go beyond the platitudes and standard rules adults fall back on and really explore the complexities of teens’ digital lives. The best parts are the “what teens want adults to know” section in each chapter, and in their conclusion they offer functional actions and strategies to help teens address digital issues. Most books like this simply identifyi the problems, without offering any solutions.