THE LOST GENERATION –
June 22, 2024 – As one example of Zuckerberg’s decision-making, executive David Ginsberg told him in 2019 citing concern about “areas of problematic use/addiction and teens,” says court records. He wanted to conduct research to “reduce loneliness and compulsive use,” but was told there weren’t resources available for his project.
Mary Rodee, the mother of a teenager who died by suicide in 2021 after being victimized by a sexual predator on Facebook, blasted Meta to the Times. “They preach that they have safety protections, but not the right ones,” she said. Rodee filed a lawsuit against Meta earlier this year. She added that Meta “never responded to the reports she submitted through automated channels on the site about her son’s death,” the Times wrote. “It’s pretty unfathomable,” she said.
The U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, is also calling for regulations that would place warning labels on social media sites, akin to labels on cigarette packs.
“The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency—and social media has emerged as an important contributor,” he wrote in an op-ed last week. “Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours.”
Some members of Congress are pushing to enact the Kids Online Safety Act, which would restrict social media firms’ ability to use addictive techniques like push notifications on underage users.
