Children are not miniature adults. So states the article, “Science for policy to protect children in cyberspace,” published in the March 30, 2023 issue of Science. The piece resulted from a collaboration among Diana Fishbein, PhD, director of translational neuro-prevention research at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) and three other scholars, Michal Gilad, Gideon Nave, and Nizan Geslevich Packin. Their intention was to translate research and scientific findings to inform the development of public policies that can improve the lives of children. The project, a unique partnership of scientists and legal scholars, is a prime example of cross-disciplinary, translational work with direct implications for policy.

"This article is a demonstration of the insightful scholarship that can be generated when distinguished scientists, like Denni [Fishbein], collaborate with law scholars in research that can inform the development of public policy,” says Gilad. “We started the Multidisciplinary Center on Childhood, Public Policy & Sustainable Society, which Denni is also a part of, to advance and facilitate such interdisciplinary collaborative projects that will help translate research and scientific findings into policies that can better the lives of children, and it is extremely encouraging that the Center’s first official project was published in Science.”

Fishbein, who is also founder and director of FPG’s FRONTIER (Fostering Research on Neuro-Prevention via Infrastructure, Education and Relationships), says that policy makers—and parents—need to understand the impacts on children of living in a cyberspace environment for many of their developmental years. Current policies and regulations regarding cyberspace often do not consider the unique attributes, needs, and vulnerabilities of young children and adolescents. Excessive online activity can stall children’s development and increase their tendency to impulsivity and sensation seeking. The paper notes that more than a third of children in the United States are still in diapers when they start using digital devices on which they spend an average of four to nine hours each day during their formative years.

The researchers used a scientific lens to examine corporations’ use of gamification and incorporation of appealing social features into their offerings for children in the digital sphere. The paper, which defines gamification as the incorporation of game-like features into non-game apps and services, notes that this multipurpose strategy can be used to “make products and services more attractive, easy to use, habit-forming, and enjoyable.” The social features incorporated into cyberspace activities for young people include chat and messaging functions that allow direct interaction with other users, including total strangers.

Brain science shows that when children play online games or interact on social media, there is an increase in dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that is responsible for motivation, reward, and feelings of pleasure. Normally, dopamine directs us toward stimuli that enable our survival, such as food, sex, reproduction, and social acceptance. Fishbein notes that commonly abused substances are attractive due to their ability to amplify activation of dopamine receptors in the brain, inducing much higher levels of pleasure than normal activities. The result can be habit formation and a compulsion to repeat the intensively pleasurable experience. In a similar way, playing online games can have an addictive-like quality, becoming compulsive.

Fishbein wants parents to understand that some digital applications and learning platforms are educational and informative for children. At the same time, caregivers need to understand that there are adverse effects when children have a great deal of unsupervised exposure to social media and games. More research is needed to understand which features are particularly appealing to children but can be harmful. Similarly, knowing that there is a range of vulnerability to harmful effects, research is needed to determine the characteristics of individuals that make them more susceptible to harm.

While for-profit businesses are using scientific knowledge about child and adolescent brain development in cyberspace to inform technology development and marketing strategies, policy makers are slower to do so. Without collaboration among scientists and law/policy experts, “scientific findings remain inaccessible to decision-makers, and research designs are not tailored to address the concrete policy questions at hand,” note the researchers.

Fishbein says that while more research is needed, there is now sufficient scientific evidence of harm from excessive engagement in digital platforms to inform policy. “We need to make sure that policymakers and regulators have an understanding of how these programs are developed,” she says. “We want policymakers to look at the research and make well-informed decisions when it comes to regulating how tech companies are marketing to children.”

As part of her commitment to ensuring the health and safety of children, Fishbein, with Dr. Melissa Clepper-Faith in FRONTIER, recently led the “Statewide Summit: Leveraging North Carolina's Assets to Prevent Child Trauma.” The event was designed to bring together and highlight the work of diverse stakeholders working on preventing trauma and promoting resilience across North Carolina.

“The idea for the Summit emerged after I moved to North Carolina and learned about all the significant work ongoing across the state by dozens of organizations and agencies,” says Fishbein. “It became clear that the time is ripe for bringing all these entities together to discuss a statewide strategy for preventing child trauma.”