Mark Zuckerberg says there’s ‘no causal connection’ between social media and teen mental health

Share via:


Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing back on the idea that social media directly harms teen mental health. During an interview with The Verge’s Alex Heath, Zuckerberg said that “the majority of the high-quality research out there suggests that there’s no causal connection at a broad scale between these things.”

This echoes the statement Zuckerberg gave in front of Congress in January during a hearing about child safety, where he argued that existing research hasn’t shown a causal link between social media and poor teen mental health. As my colleague Adi Robertson pointed out at the time, it’s difficult to prove causal links, and research shows social media could cause both negative and positive impacts on an adolescent’s mental health.

“The academic research shows something that I think, to me, fits more with what I’ve seen of how the platforms operate,” Zuckerberg told The Verge. “But it’s counter to what a lot of people think, and I think that’s going to be a reckoning that we’ll have to have.” Zuckerberg argues that giving parents the tools they need to limit their child’s social media use is the right approach for the company:

You can play a role in trying to make something better even if the thing wasn’t caused by you in the first place… I think that we can play a role in giving people parental controls over the apps. I think that parental controls are also really important because parents have different ways that they want to raise their kids.

Zuckerberg once again reiterated that he believes app store owners like Google and Apple should handle age verification, not individual platforms. He adds that it’s “not very excusable” for them to avoid taking responsibility for the measure because “every time you go do a payment on your phone, there already is basically child age verification.”

Despite Zuckerberg’s skepticism about direct ties to social media and mental health, he told The Verge that the company will “follow the government’s direction and the laws” on child safety if they’re passed. “I would say that the ability to get push notifications and get distracted, from my perspective, seems like a much greater contributor to mental health issues than a lot of the specific apps.”



Source link

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We StartupNews.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.

Popular

More Like this

Mark Zuckerberg says there’s ‘no causal connection’ between social media and teen mental health


Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing back on the idea that social media directly harms teen mental health. During an interview with The Verge’s Alex Heath, Zuckerberg said that “the majority of the high-quality research out there suggests that there’s no causal connection at a broad scale between these things.”

This echoes the statement Zuckerberg gave in front of Congress in January during a hearing about child safety, where he argued that existing research hasn’t shown a causal link between social media and poor teen mental health. As my colleague Adi Robertson pointed out at the time, it’s difficult to prove causal links, and research shows social media could cause both negative and positive impacts on an adolescent’s mental health.

“The academic research shows something that I think, to me, fits more with what I’ve seen of how the platforms operate,” Zuckerberg told The Verge. “But it’s counter to what a lot of people think, and I think that’s going to be a reckoning that we’ll have to have.” Zuckerberg argues that giving parents the tools they need to limit their child’s social media use is the right approach for the company:

You can play a role in trying to make something better even if the thing wasn’t caused by you in the first place… I think that we can play a role in giving people parental controls over the apps. I think that parental controls are also really important because parents have different ways that they want to raise their kids.

Zuckerberg once again reiterated that he believes app store owners like Google and Apple should handle age verification, not individual platforms. He adds that it’s “not very excusable” for them to avoid taking responsibility for the measure because “every time you go do a payment on your phone, there already is basically child age verification.”

Despite Zuckerberg’s skepticism about direct ties to social media and mental health, he told The Verge that the company will “follow the government’s direction and the laws” on child safety if they’re passed. “I would say that the ability to get push notifications and get distracted, from my perspective, seems like a much greater contributor to mental health issues than a lot of the specific apps.”



Source link

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We StartupNews.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.

Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at office@startupnews.fyi

More like this

TBO Tek Sets Up New Subsidiary In Indonesia

SUMMARY TBO Tek has set up a new wholly-owned...

Info Edge Files FIR Against 4B Networks’ Founder Rahul...

SUMMARY Info Edge has lodged a first information report...

Semiconductor surge brings Taiwan logistics startup to SEA

BBTruck and Haulio believe that the rise of...

Popular

Upcoming Events

Startup Information that matters. Get in your inbox Daily!