It was the last day of school before winter break, and Aiden and his eighth-grade classmates were playing a game of Mafia. After the first round, though, one of Aiden’s friends got bored and quit playing.

Another friend called him a “screenager,” Aiden recalled — “like, your attention span is so short.”

The incident was an example of a larger trend, Aiden, one of several Scholastic Kid Reporters I talked to for this story, told me: “People are less likely to have fun and enjoy being around other people, and they prefer being around technology.”

Five years ago, the national conversation about young people and social media was dominated by worries about cyberbullying, online harassment, and body image. Today, the biggest fear among teens and adults alike is, arguably, brainrot: the idea that social media sites, especially short-form video platforms like TikTok, have eroded young people’s ability to pay attention to anything for longer than a few seconds.

But as much as users of all ages seem to agree that the rise of short-form video creates problems for young people and for society, few agree on a solution. Social media bans like the one that took effect in Australia earlier this month have been met with optimism in some quarters, but many are skeptical.

“It’s not going to work,” said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University. “Youth are going to circumvent them.”

If anything, the shift to short-form video is a reminder of how difficult........

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