Do you agree with 👑 Prince Harry on the dangers of social media?
A shorter newsletter this time, asking questions about kids, teens, and social media...
Here are the questions we have this week:
😔 Have teens’ childhoods been fundamentally shaped by social media?
👪🏾 What are the polls unpacking on mental health and social media?
📱 Is social media an “epidemic”?
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, warned youth is in the midst of an “epidemic” of anxiety, depression, and social isolation due to negative experiences on social media on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative late last month, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York — also known as UNGA.
Here some takeaways from his speech:
“These platforms are designed to create addiction”
“Young people are kept there by mindless, endless, numbing scrolling”
Young people are “being force-fed content that no child should ever be exposed to — this is not free will”
Prince Harry stressed the need for corporate accountability
He asked why leaders of powerful social media companies are still held to the “lowest ethical standards”
He called on shareholders to demand tangible change
His wife Meghan Markle, while not in the audience as she stayed with the couple’s kids in California, said she did follow along with his speech from home, and she is “extremely proud” of her husband.
Prince Harry also launched a new initiative supporting parents and youth throughout, the Parents’ Network, a new online support group organized by his and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation.
“Parenting doesn’t end with the birth of a child. Neither does founding a company. We have a duty and a responsibility to see our creations through.”
Did you miss this?
Combatting the Teen Mental Health Crisis (
in )Social media companies make significant child privacy and safety changes as a result of legislation (London School of Economics)
Gen Z Has Regrets (Jonathan Haidt and Will Johnson, The New York Times)
😔 Have teens’ childhoods been fundamentally shaped by social media?
“Liberated”
“It feels like camp — I love that feeling.”
“I keep subconsciously trying to reach for it”
These are some of the moments in the opening scenes of documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield’s Social Studies, a new, five-part documentary series chronicling the start of a new school year in August 2021.
“The show’s cast of characters agreed to screen-record their private phone activity and share intimate, vulnerable reflections with each other and Greenfield.”
— The Washington Post
According to the Washington Post, the documentary’s result is “an unfiltered, firsthand view of the issues they grapple with daily:”
slut-shaming and cyberbullying
struggles with mental health and self image
racism
sexual assault and online predators
the turbulence of teen relationships
social missteps unfolding before vast online audiences
😎 What is Meta’s approach?
Let’s see…
On one side, Instagram, which is particularly popular with teenagers, introduced Teen Accounts, new settings and features aimed at addressing inappropriate online contact and content, and improving sleep for users under 18.
On the other side, Meta’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says there’s ‘no causal connection’ between social media and teen mental health.
This is what Zuckerberg told The Verge’s Alex Heath:
“The academic research shows something that I think, to me, fits more with what I’ve seen of how the platforms operate”
“But it’s counter to what a lot of people think, and I think that’s going to be a reckoning that we’ll have to have”
“I would say that the ability to get push notifications and get distracted, from my perspective, seems like a much greater contributor to mental health issues than a lot of the specific apps”
Meta will “follow the government’s direction and the laws” on child safety if they’re passed
On the new Instagram Teen Accounts, he argued that giving parents the tools they need to limit their child’s social media use is the right approach for the company.
“You can play a role in trying to make something better even if the thing wasn’t caused by you in the first place... I think that we can play a role in giving people parental controls over the apps. I think that parental controls are also really important because parents have different ways that they want to raise their kids.”
👪🏾 What are the polls unpacking on mental health and social media?
According to the US National Education Association:
Over 90% of educators feel students’ mental health is a serious issue at their school, and a majority say there has been a significant increase in concerns related to student mental health in the past few years
An overwhelming majority of NEA members—90%—support school policy prohibiting cell phone/personal devices during instructional time
NEA members voice broad support for the federal and state governments requiring social media companies to make changes to protect student safety and privacy
National poll results from the Kids Mental Health Foundation:
50% of parents say too much time spent with technology will be their kids' top challenge in forming positive connections with those around them
30% considered bullying the top challenge to building connections
22% are concerned about the lingering social impact of the pandemic
19% said their kids struggle to make connections because they don't feel they fit in due to their race, ethnicity, culture, income level or gender identity
Mount Sinai South Nassau's new Truth in Medicine poll reveals:
72% of parents want their child to have a cell phone at school in case of an emergency
but 77% say they also support a ban on cell phone use in schools during the day
85% support state laws limiting social media for minors
68% believe parental controls for their children’s social media use are effective
27% percent say their children spend up to two hours per day on social media apps
34% say they spend between three and four hours
16% say five or more hours per day
23% are not sure
Prince Harry is right.