Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/17/social-media-needs-warning-labels-contributing-to-teenage-mental-health-crisis-says-us-surgeon-general.html
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Coming soon to the BBS?
(Not many teenagers here, I don’t think, but could be wrong.)
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Agreed, it’s not like it was a bunch of teenagers who stormed the Capitol building based on some bullshit election fraud nonsense they read on Facebook. As loathe as many are to admit it, adults are at least as vulnerable to the worst effects of social media if not moreso.
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We are in the middle of a grand experiment with social media. We still don’t know how it affects relationships and mental health long term. The data is still noisy, but it does seem like there is a measurable effect on teen-aged girls’ mental health and teen-aged boys’ abilities to form deep social bonds.
Lots of other things have been happening at the same time to affect kids’ mental health (e.g., a small pandemic). Is it worth continuing this experiment because we don’t have complete rock solid data, or should we be trying to proactively make social media safer for kids?
I don’t know if a warning label is going to be helpful. If it does anything, it will only affect things on the margins (for better or worse). At a minimum, kids and their parents need to understand how co-opts developing brains.
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It it works about as well as warnings on cigarette packets, don’t bother. I saw them, I could read, and smoked anyway.
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ah, like Camel filters or Marlboro “lights”
What does that even mean?
School closures and lockdowns related to COVID 19 seriously affected many kids’ mental health. I’m not implying that the closures and lockdowns were a bad idea given what we knew about the disease early on, but they did negatively affect lots of kids.
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“Power-Mad Surgeon General Draws Obscene Analogy Between a Deadly Poison that Kills Millions Every Year and Kids Looking at Videos on Their Phones.”
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May cause extreme views of oneself* or others**
* in children
** in adults
Teenagers at heart!
From what I have read, Social Media is worse for tween and young teen users who haven’t started to cement their own self image and hurtful language really does a number on them. Which makes sense from my personal experience. Only I had to deal with a handful of in person bullies. I can’t imagine how easy a digital dogpile would be today for kids.
But at the same time, my kids peer group is all online with their chat rooms and zoom and stuff. So that part is an important part of socialization and having a peer network.
She goes to an online HS and we are leaving tomorrow for Mississippi for the in person graduation where she hopes to meet some of her friends IRL. So clearly good bonds can be made via social media (albiet the more walled garden variety._
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Is- Is- Is a warning label a primary public health strategy for the US government?
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