Facebook's Dangerous Experiment on Teen Girls

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-dangerous-experiment-teen-girls/620767/

by yholio • 5 years ago

4 1 5 years ago

First, Congress should pass legislation compelling Facebook, Instagram, and all other social-media platforms to allow academic researchers access to their data. One such bill is the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act, proposed by the Stanford University researcher Nate Persily.
Second, Congress should toughen the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. An early version of the legislation proposed 16 as the age at which children should legally be allowed to give away their data and their privacy. Unfortunately, e-commerce companies lobbied successfully to have the age of “internet adulthood” set instead at 13. Now, more than two decades later, today’s 13-year-olds are not doing well. Federal law is outdated and inadequate. The age should be raised. More power should be given to parents, less to companies.
Third, while Americans wait for lawmakers to act, parents can work with local schools to establish a norm: Delay entry to Instagram and other social platforms until high school.

None of these suggestions actually fix anything. The problem is the feedback loops on the application itself that encourage constant comparisons because they increase engagement. It turns out that constant comparisons with others leads to lower self-esteem and increased anxiety in teenagers. None of these solutions actually address the underlying mechanics of the application that leads to the negative outcomes for teenagers. [1]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=29313367

Facebook's Dangerous Experiment on Teen Girls

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