Reuters: US Senate panel to hold hearing on social media impact on young users. “The US Senate will hold an Oct 26 hearing with tech firms TikTok, Snap’s Snapchat and Alphabet’s YouTube about their platforms’ impact on young users, the panel said on Tuesday (Oct 19).”
New York Times: Eating Disorders and Social Media Prove Difficult to Untangle. “On Tuesday, executives from YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat are scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee about the effects of their products on children. They are expected to face questions about how they moderate content that might encourage disordered eating, and how their algorithms might promote such content.”
Washington Post: For teens, navigating the mental health pitfalls of Instagram is part of everyday life. “Danielle Wagstaff, a lecturer in psychology at Federation University in Australia, co-authored a 2019 paper linking Instagram use with adverse mental health symptoms in women…. But teens are savvy media consumers and they’re coming to their own conclusions about the apps that expand their worlds and pricks at their brains. Teens say they understand how the algorithm works, and they’re doing their best to blunt its effects.”
CNN: Pfizer vaccine is 93% effective in preventing Covid-19 hospitalization among adolescents, CDC study finds. “The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is 93% effective in preventing hospitalization due to Covid-19 among children ages 12 to 18, according to a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccine effectiveness differed only slightly within that age group, with 91% effectiveness for children age 12 to 15 and 94% effectiveness for those age 16 to 18.”
New York Times: Roblox, the Gaming Site, Wants to Grow Up Without Sacrificing Child Safety. “Roblox’s effort to keep in touch with an older audience while maintaining a safe environment for its youngest users offers both a road map and a cautionary note for other internet companies attempting the opposite: engaging with a younger audience.”
New York Times: Instagram Struggles With Fears of Losing Its ‘Pipeline’: Young Users. “When Instagram reached one billion users in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, called it ‘an amazing success.’ The photo-sharing app, which Facebook owns, was widely hailed as a hit with young people and celebrated as a growth engine for the social network. But even as Mr. Zuckerberg praised Instagram, the app was privately lamenting the loss of teenage users to other social media platforms as an “existential threat,” according to a 2018 marketing presentation.”
WHYY: N.J. coronavirus update: Resources offered for young people dealing with mental health challenges. “New Jersey officials said they have seen an increase in children dealing with anxiety and depression, which they attribute to the isolation of remote learning and now, readjusting to in-person learning. To help young people to better cope with these stresses, the state has launched a new corner of its COVID-19 website dedicated to mental health resources for kids, teenagers, and young adults, as well as parents and educators.”
CNN: Instagram promoted pages glorifying eating disorders to teen accounts. “Proof that Instagram is not only failing to crack down on accounts promoting extreme dieting and eating disorders, but actively promotes those accounts, comes as Instagram and its parent company Facebook (FB) are facing intense scrutiny over the impact they have on young people’s mental health.”
CBS News: Highlights from 60 Minutes’ Interview with the Facebook Whistleblower. “Data scientist Frances Haugen secretly copied tens of thousands of pages of Facebook’s internal research while she worked for the company, and gave them to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to Congress. The 37-year-old from Iowa claims evidence shows the company is lying about making significant progress against hate, violence. These were some of the revelations from her interview with Scott Pelley.”
CNN: These high school students are fighting for ethical AI. “It’s been a busy year for Encode Justice, an international group of grassroots activists pushing for ethical uses of artificial intelligence. There have been legislators to lobby, online seminars to hold, and meetings to attend, all in hopes of educating others about the harms of facial-recognition technology. It would be a lot for any activist group to fit into the workday; most of the team behind Encode Justice have had to cram it all in around high school.”
CNET: Facebook to release internal research on Instagram’s impact on teens. “Facebook plans to release internal research on Instagram to Congress and the public after a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month raised serious concerns about the photo-sharing app’s impact on the mental health of teens. The social network will share the research in the ‘next few days,’ said Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, during an online event hosted by the Atlantic on Monday.”
Fast Company: This chatbot teaches counselors how to talk to LGBTQ kids in crisis. “In a world in which most chatbots are used for mercenary reasons like retail cost cutting and phishing, the Crisis Contact Simulator is a landmark project. It won our 2021 Innovation by Design Award for Social Good because it leverages the seamless user experience of automation to help the Trevor Project’s training staff onboard more counselors. The AI tool is a digital replica of the nonprofit’s existing training regime.”
Marsha Blackburn: Blackburn and Blumenthal to Hold Hearing on Facebook & Instagram’s Impacts on Teens’ Mental Health. “U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ranking Member and Chair of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, will convene a hearing on Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 10:30 AM titled ‘Protecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, & Mental Health Harms.’ Facebook has confirmed that the company’s Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, will testify at the hearing.”
Mashable: 8 online experiences linked to suicide in kids and teens. “When a child or teenager attempts or dies by suicide, it sets off a desperate search to understand why. While that’s the case with many suicide attempts or deaths regardless of the person’s age, a child’s vulnerability and relative innocence creates a particularly heartbreaking contrast with their feelings of hopelessness. A new study aims to better understand one set of risk factors for youth: their online experiences.”
WTSP: Palmetto High School senior dies of COVID-19. “Aryana Santana was ready for senior year to start. She was a familiar face at Palmetto High School. She participated in the yearbook and was actively involved with JROTC. Described as ‘a ray of sunshine,’ Santana’s family said she was loved by everybody around her. Then, she tested positive for COVID-19. It lead her to develop pneumonia in both lungs.”
