Questions About Mental Health and Social Media
student opinion
How Does Social Media Affect Your Mental Health?
Facebook has delayed the development of an Instagram app for children amidst questions about its harmful furnishings on immature people'south mental wellness. Does social media take an touch on on your well-being?
What is your relationship with social media like? Which platforms do you spend the most time on? Which do you stay away from? How oftentimes do you log on?
What exercise you notice about your mental health and well-being when spending time on social networks?
In "Facebook Delays Instagram App for Users thirteen and Younger," Adam Satariano and Ryan Mac write about the findings of an internal written report conducted by Facebook and what they hateful for the Instagram Kids app that the company was developing:
Facebook said on Mon that it had paused development of an Instagram Kids service that would be tailored for children 13 years old or younger, as the social network increasingly faces questions nigh the app's issue on immature people'south mental health.
The pullback preceded a congressional hearing this calendar week about internal inquiry conducted by Facebook, and reported in The Wall Street Periodical, that showed the company knew of the harmful mental health furnishings that Instagram was having on teenage girls. The revelations have set up off a public relations crisis for the Silicon Valley company and led to a fresh round of calls for new regulation.
Facebook said it withal wanted to build an Instagram product intended for children that would have a more than "age appropriate experience," merely was postponing the plans in the confront of criticism.
The commodity continues:
With Instagram Kids, Facebook had argued that young people were using the photo-sharing app anyhow, despite age-requirement rules, so it would be ameliorate to develop a version more suitable for them. Facebook said the "kids" app was intended for ages 10 to 12 and would require parental permission to join, forgo ads and carry more age-advisable content and features. Parents would be able to control what accounts their child followed. YouTube, which Google owns, has released a children's version of its app.
But since BuzzFeed broke the news this year that Facebook was working on the app, the company has faced scrutiny. Policymakers, regulators, child safety groups and consumer rights groups have argued that it hooks children on the app at a younger historic period rather than protecting them from bug with the service, including child predatory grooming, bullying and body shaming.
The article goes on to quote Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram:
Mr. Mosseri said on Monday that the "the projection leaked manner before we knew what it would exist" and that the visitor had "few answers" for the public at the time.
Opposition to Facebook's plans gained momentum this calendar month when The Periodical published articles based on leaked internal documents that showed Facebook knew about many of the harms it was causing. Facebook's internal inquiry showed that Instagram, in particular, had caused teen girls to feel worse well-nigh their bodies and led to increased rates of anxiety and depression, fifty-fifty while company executives publicly tried to minimize the app'due south downsides.
Simply concerns virtually the event of social media on young people go beyond Instagram Kids, the article notes:
A children's version of Instagram would not fix more systemic problems, said Al Mik, a spokesman for 5Rights Foundation, a London group focused on digital rights issues for children. The group published a report in July showing that children as young as xiii were targeted within 24 hours of creating an account with harmful content, including cloth related to eating disorders, extreme diets, sexualized imagery, body shaming, self-impairment and suicide.
"Big Tobacco understood that the younger you got to someone, the easier you could get them addicted to become a lifelong user," Doug Peterson, Nebraska'due south attorney full general, said in an interview. "I see some comparisons to social media platforms."
In May, attorneys general from 44 states and jurisdictions had signed a alphabetic character to Facebook's master executive, Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to finish plans for building an Instagram app for children.
American policymakers should laissez passer tougher laws to restrict how tech platforms target children, said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a Boston-based group that was part of an international coalition of children's and consumer groups opposed to the new app. Terminal year, United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland adopted an Historic period Appropriate Blueprint Code, which requires added privacy protections for digital services used past people under the age of 18.
Students, read the entire article , then tell u.s.a.:
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Do you lot think Facebook made the right determination in halting the development of the Instagram Kids app? Do y'all think in that location should exist social media apps for children xiii and younger? Why or why non?
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What is your reaction to the enquiry that found that Instagram can have harmful mental health furnishings on teenagers, particularly teenage girls? Have you experienced trunk image issues, anxiety or depression tied to your utilize of the app? How do you recollect social media affects your mental health?
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What has your experience been on different social media apps? Are in that location apps that have a more positive or negative effect on your well-being? What do you think could explain these differences?
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Have you ever been targeted with inappropriate or harmful content on Instagram or other social media apps? What responsibleness practise you think social media companies take to address these issues? Practise you recollect there should exist more protections in place for users under 18? Why or why not?
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What does healthy social media engagement look like for yous? What habits do you lot take around social media that you experience proud of? What behaviors would yous like to change? How involved are your parents in your social media utilise? How involved exercise you recall they should exist?
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If y'all were in charge of making Instagram, or another social media app, safer for teenagers, what changes would yous make?
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