Mark Zuckerberg is responding to a major concern about social media

Mark Zuckerberg is addressing a major concern many consumers have about most social media apps, including his own platforms.

As consumers and lawmakers begin to raise red flags about social media and the negative impact it can have on the declining mental health of young users, the billionaire CEO of Meta Platforms (THE TARGET) revealed in a recent interview with The Verge that he believes there is “no causal connection” between the two.

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“I think a lot of people feel there is a connection,” Zuckerberg said during the interview. “I think most high-quality research suggests there’s no large-scale causal link between these things.”

He argues that as more research emerges about the lack of connection between social media and the mental health of young users, people may struggle to accept it.

“Academic research is showing something that I think, to me, is more in line with what we’ve seen about how platforms work,” Zuckerberg said. “But it’s contrary to what a lot of people think, and I think it’s going to be a reckoning we’re going to have to face. Basically, as most high-quality academic research comes out, well, can people accept that? I think this is going to be a very important set of debates over the next few years.”

From right, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X Corp. and Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, testify during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” January 31, 2024.

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Zuckerberg also revealed that the ability to receive push notifications on phones and to be “distracted” appears to be “a much bigger contributor to mental health issues than many specific apps.” He argues that apps are doing their part to create tools that parents can use to monitor their children’s social media use, and that there are things that “everyone should be trying to improve and work on.”

“You can play a role in trying to make something better, even if it wasn’t caused by you in the first place,” Zuckerberg said. “There is no doubt that being a parent is very hard. And there’s a big question, in this age of the internet where we have phones, what are the right tools that parents need to be able to raise their children? I think we can play a role in giving people parental control over apps.”

Recent research challenges Mark Zuckerberg’s claims

While Zuckerberg claims that research suggests there is “no causal link” between social media use and young people’s mental health, many other studies say otherwise.

Recent data has found that social media use is indeed linked to adolescent mental health. According to a recent Gallup poll, teenagers who spend more time on social media reported poorer mental health.

The survey found that 41 percent of teens who spend more than five hours a day on social media reported having “poor/very poor overall mental health,” compared to 23 percent of teens who spend just two hours a day on social media.

Teenagers in circle holding smart mobile phones.

Kar-Tr/Getty Images

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy also released an advisory last year warning that a growing number of studies show that social media can have a negative impact on young people’s mental health.

“In addition to these recent studies, correlational research on associations between social media use and mental health has indicated cause for concern and further investigation,” Murthy said in his opinion. “These studies indicate a greater relative concern for harm in adolescent girls and those already experiencing poor mental health, as well as for certain health outcomes such as cyberbullying-related depression, body image and eating behaviors disordered and poor sleep quality related to social media. use.”

Meta unveils a new feature to protect children on its platforms

Meta, which owns giant social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, also recently launched new tools to help protect the mental health of minors in its apps.

On September 17, Meta launched a new feature for Instagram that automatically places new and existing users under the age of 18 into “Teen Accounts,” which consists of “built-in protections” that limit who they can contact and what they see . on the platform.

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Some of these protections also include “time limit reminders” that instruct teens to exit the app after spending 60 minutes on it each day. The account also has a sleep mode that will “turn off notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs.”

Also, these settings can only be adjusted by users 16 years of age or older.

Zuckerberg apologized to parents whose children were exploited in his apps

Zuckerberg’s comments come after Meta and other social media companies testified during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January, where lawmakers raised concerns about the threat their platforms pose to the children who use them. . Some of these threats include bullying, social media addiction, sexual exploitation, unrealistic beauty standards, etc.

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“They are responsible for many of the dangers our children face online,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the committee, said during the hearing. “Their design lapses, their failures to invest adequately in trust and safety, their constant pursuit of engagement and profit at the expense of basic safety have put our children and grandchildren at risk.”

Zuckerberg apologized to parents at the hearing, who claimed his social media platforms exploited their children.

“I’m sorry for everything you’ve all been through. No one should have to go through what your families have gone through,’ he said. He also added that Meta continues to invest and work on “industry-leading efforts” to keep children safe.

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