Naomi Nix

Notifications, product features like that, that they say are really designed to just keep people returning to their sites over and over and over again, leading to really harmful consequences, whether that's anxiety, whether that's depression, untimely deaths.

And so they're kind of making claims that are similar to, you know, some of the claims that were hit to big tobacco companies, you know, way back when, when they said, hey, these products have been especially designed to be addictive.

The companies also know that based on their own internal research, and they haven't really been upfront about the risks.

In fact, they've been perhaps deceptive and have failed to protect young people in the way that they should.

It's a little murky, right?

There's no such thing as like social media addiction and the DSM that, you know, a psychologist is going to like give you as a diagnosis and put on your insurance for it.

But there is a body of research, outside research certainly, that raises the question about whether social media usage can lead to or contribute to potential harmful mental health outcomes.

And so there has been research that has perhaps drawn the conclusion that problematic use of social media or long periods of time of social media is correlated with poor mental distressing outcomes.

But there's other studies that don't establish that correlation.

And again, there has been an even sort of bigger debate in the academic community of is there, you know, even if you prove correlation, is there causation?

How do we know that it's the social media platforms themselves that are causing the distress?

among those teens, or is it just the fact that teens who are already kind of distressed for a variety of reasons are turning to social media and perhaps using social media in problematic ways?

And also, you know, where are the parents?

I think this is a jury trial and that's probably one of the obstacles they'll have to overcome is, well, how much is the tech company's responsibility and how much is our parents supposed to, you know, intervene and try to protect their kids?

My guess is that that conversation will probably emerge as well.

Yeah.

I mean, scams, sextortion scams have been, you know, one area that regulators are paying increasing attention to, where particularly for targeting young boys, someone will post a photo of like a young, seemingly attractive woman.

They'll engage a conversation.

They'll get him to send compromising photos of himself and then threaten to send those photos to his friends and family if he doesn't give over money.

And, you know, he ends up in a vulnerable situation.