🎄More Than Robots #96 December 2025

Whether

“Christmas is a together sort of holiday.” Winnie The Pooh

Whether you're slowing down, having a knees up or seeing relatives again here's a whole catalogue of gifts and some late returns

📖 Research

Inside the mind of a 16-year-old

For many young people, social media is not just a place where they absorb opinions, it is where they form them. Scrolling becomes part of how they think. Further commentary: Ditch the ‘Andrew Tate assembly’ and start having proper discussions

Understanding Online Financial Harm

The risk of false or misleading financial information targeting children may be under-recognised. There is a growing recognition that harm extends beyond financial loss. It can also be emotional and psychological. Also: Neurodiversity and fraud victimhood: susceptibility, impacts and recommendations

0-3-Year-old children’s digital language and literacy practices at home

many parents lack confidence in managing children’s device use and would welcome practical strategies to foster positive language and literacy learning, to select high quality apps and to manage device use. Also: Parental mediation of very young children’s early experiences with digital media at home and Balancing the Digital Scales: Screen Time Management in Early Childhood Education

Young People and Gambling 2025

Three in ten 11–17 year olds spent their own money on gambling in the past year, up from 2024 and driven mainly by unregulated gambling. Also: A new gambling levy, and the dark side of the industry

Cognitive sovereignty and neurocomputational harm in predictive digital platforms

When populations inhabit environments that reward reactivity and discourage pause, collective deliberation weakens. Autonomy becomes procedural rather than substantive, and consent persists as a surface form stripped of interior judgment. Safeguarding cognitive sovereignty thus emerges as both personal entitlement and democratic obligation. Also: Agency does not equal choice and When Focus Breaks

Virtual Worlds And Well-being

Researchers may want to consider a renewed focus on a few key units of analysis – technology features and affordances, social interaction properties, and message characteristics. Also Ethics of neurotechnology

Electronic screen use and children's socioemotional problems

Guidelines can be blunt instruments because they usually recommend the same thing across a population, but we found few variables that moderated effects across populations.

Digital and Algorithmic Normalisation of Violence Against Women and Girls

Reclaiming a safe digital future is contingent upon moving beyond reactive moderation to enforce accountability at the level of systemic design.

Indications of Child Sexual Abuse Revealed in App Store Reviews

Given, the large number of reports of child exploitation over hundreds of apps spanning over a decade, it seems likely that user-generated reports are not being consistently analyzed by Apple or Google.

Global well-being in 2025

Our most robust findings iterate strongly that mental health among younger populations is comparatively low compared to older generations, despite all advantages of modern living.

🗳️Take part

Youth Advisory Board on Improving Wellbeing-Focused Media Literacy Education in Schools.

The University of York is inviting young people to join an Advisory Board to guide its research on how schools teach online safety and wellbeing.

Parent Supervision Tools - Survey

Parent Zone is seeking parents' views on the tools platforms have in place for parents.

'looksmaxxing' call for evidence

The Centre for Young Lives want to understand how these beauty trends are impacting how some boys and young men see themselves and the wider world.

🧰 Resources

App Danger

App Danger checks if user reviews show apps may be unsafe for children on Apple and Google app stores. The project is run by UMass Amherst Rescue Lab

Templates for AI-powered mental wellness

Evidence-based conversation frameworks for AI-assisted mental wellness support.

Everyday Digital Life Skills

Learn how to help families thrive online.

Be Scam Ready

A hands-on game that lets you experience scammers' tactics firsthand

💡Inspiration and opinion

Co-Creating Media Literacies for Better Sociodigital Futures

In approaching smartphones as sociodigital devices, our research highlights how bans can neglect nuanced experiences of diverse young people and families and potentially increase digital inequalities and harms.

Young conservative women build an alternative to the manosphere

In some ways, their new-media content is a callback to the long-ago era that these legacy women’s publications left behind. Also: How Wellness and Beauty Influencers Can Be Part of an Alt-Right Pipeline for Teen Girls

The Monitored Generation: Navigating Autonomy and Independence in the Digital Age

Rare is the straight line in parenting, despite what digital services may push and promise. Technology should support, not impede, the relational core of parenting.

How to use the internet again: a curriculum

The algorithm isn’t your friend, but it’s not god either. You don’t have to beg it for scraps. You can leave. You can wander. You can build.

…and finally

2017: 'Perhaps our best defence against the dark arts of the robots is dance… and poetry and comedy and art.'

2025: 'Hand–crafted adversarial poems can alter refusal behavior in large language models.'