A trial is probing the impact of the platform’s design on young users as a pediatrician and local parents warn of rising anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal.
Are the algorithms for social media platforms leading to mental health problems in youth? That is a question being explored in a weeks-long trial underway in Los Angeles.
And we had some questions of our own about the issue and found that a chief medical officer for state school districts and a college has seen the problems firsthand.
“I have never seen the apathy, the anxiety, the depression, and the lack of the focus on being a productive citizen, then I’ve, I’ve never seen that more than I’m seeing that right now in people ages 11 to18,” said Dr. Corey Hébert, a pediatrician who is on the faculty of both Tulane and LSUHSC.
Dr. Hébert believes social media is responsible.
“They aren’t able to handle any type of stressful situation without melting down. They are depressed because of what they see and can’t have but also they don’t know how to interact with their peers. They have no ability to reason. They have no ability to problem solve in that way because they’ve never been challenged to do so.”
Jillian Armstrong, a mother of three girls, writes the blog New Orleans Mom, and has decided to limit social media time for herself and the girls.
“Depression, the negative impact on body image, I even noticed just the discontentment in myself. Like I’m perfectly happy with my life and my home and how I look and then I spend an hour on Instagram and suddenly everything’s terrible. I don’t have enough. I want to change it all,” Armstrong said.
She sees other parents setting limits too.
“I can’t really see it benefiting their lives. There’s so many other things they can spend their time doing and I want them to do those other things,” she added.
Dr. Hébert says just like you take away the bottle and diapers to help children mature, you should do the same with the screen, no matter how much they protest.
“You can not have, especially in 11, 12-year-old-girls and boys with full internet access on their phone, and they have their phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he warned.
Dr. Hébert especially worries about the anxiety leading to escaping through drug use.
“Marijuana is the key drug to be able to make a child or an adult not worry about anything. Then when you’re not high anymore and you come down, now the problem is worse,” he said.
One young man made the decision to limit his social media time on his own.
“So, this year I plan on giving up social media for Lent. I think there are a lot of negative effects that come with being on social media a long time,” the teen said.
Dr. Hébert is encouraging parents to watch the documentary “The Social Dilemma” to help them better understand the issue. And Jillian said she learned more from the book “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt.