Last fall, 41 state attorneys general sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging that it “knowingly designed and deployed harmful features … to purposefully addict children and teens.”1 In January, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing to address online child safety issues.2 And this month, the House of Representatives voted to ban TikTok if it did not address data and privacy concerns.3 Despite a bipartisan consensus acknowledging the social media risks for youth, no substantial legislative action has been taken to protect them from exploitation and psychological harm.
Recognizing the widespread harms of social media children face online, opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg recently wrote in the New York Times about the need to help kids and teens step away from social media. With so much of their lives centered on apps and the internet, she made the case that kids and teens deserve to have better physical spaces to congregate and hang out with friends. Goldberg recommended that local governments and businesses create, maintain, and support “parks, food courts, movie theaters, even video arcades,” among other locations, to encourage offline connections and activities.4
Profiles and For You Pages
Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with access to cell phones and social media. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these were helpful tools for young people to stay connected amid school closures and stay-at-home orders. Being on your phone is not necessarily a bad thing; social media can be used in healthy ways to develop and maintain friendships, learn new information, and express yourself. But addictive algorithms can hook kids, rewarding them for their engagement and spiraling them down deep rabbit holes of dangerous content, from eating disorders to suicide.5 A Gallup survey from October found that the average teenager spends nearly five hours on social media each day.6
Kids today are increasingly struggling with their mental health and experiencing heightened feelings of isolation, anxiety, and depression.7 In 2023, the Journal of Pediatrics published a report claiming that the “primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”8 That year, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory linking excessive social media use to the youth mental health crisis.9
Offline and Physical Places
Local governments could prioritize the well-being of young people by increasing the availability of youth-centered public social spaces. When the local library in Falls Church, Virginia, was renovated, it tripled the size of its sections for children and teens.10 In the Bronx, local government leaders and community organizers are currently working together to fix up two dilapidated skate parks.11 By supporting such projects, communities could increase the opportunities young people have to socialize in person as an alternative to social media. Promoting and encouraging their use could turn them into valuable public resources.
Having social spaces for kids and teens to hang out could help them de-stress, stay active, and make connections, all while strengthening their social skills and increasing their sense of belonging. Goldberg cited social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who states, “While kids are under-protected on the internet, they’re over-protected in the real world.”12 With space to play and socialize, kids could get face-to-face interactions and the benefits that come from both engaging with others in person and taking a break from the toxicity of social media.
Just the First Step
When choosing to create these community spaces, local decision-makers must look out for the safety and overall well-being of kids. Other considerations include accessibility and availability. Are these spaces indoors or outdoors? Do kids need transportation to access them? Are they open at reasonable hours? Are they pleasant to visit and free to use?
Goldberg’s call for quality social spaces is a small step meant to encourage young people to spend less time online—something they desire but just don’t know how to do. 13 One high schooler in a focus group on youth social media use believes “we’d all feel a lot better if we were on [our phones] less,” and that taking a break “almost sets you free in a way.”14 More social spaces would provide the infrastructure and opportunity to do so, but ultimately the decision to use them comes down to parents and individual kids. This is not the only solution to mitigate social media risks for youth, as the underlying issues and their effects on kids still need to be addressed through parental controls, content moderation, and updated legislation.
Discussion Questions
- How much time per day do you spend on social media? (You can check your phone’s settings to see your Screen Time on iOS or Digital Wellbeing on Android.)
- Have you seen or experienced negative effects of social media?
- Does your community have dedicated places for young people to socialize? How would you rate the quality of these places?
- Where do you or people your age hang out in your community?
- What types of social spaces would you ideally like to have in your community?
Other Resources
- To read the full opinion piece by Michelle Goldberg, see The Internet Is a Wasteland, So Give Kids Better Places to Go
As always, we encourage you to join the discussion with your comments or questions below.
Close Up is proud to be the nation’s leading nonprofit civic education organization, working with schools and districts across the country since 1971. If you would like to partner with us or learn more about our experiential learning programs, professional development, or curriculum design and consulting, contact us today!
Sources
Featured Image Credit: PeopleImages/iStockphoto/Getty Images
[1] Office of the Attorney General of New Jersey: https://www.njoag.gov/ag-platkin-41-other-attorneys-general-sue-meta-for-harms-to-youth-from-instagram-facebook
[2] Associated Press: https://apnews.com/article/meta-tiktok-snap-discord-zuckerberg-testify-senate-00754a6bea92aaad62585ed55f219932
[3] Associated Press: https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-house-vote-china-national-security-8fa7258fae1a4902d344c9d978d58a37
[4] New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/opinion/internet-kids-social-media.html
[5] Axios: https://www.axios.com/2024/03/22/tiktok-youtube-kids-scroll-time-data
[6] Gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/512576/teens-spend-average-hours-social-media-per-day.aspx
[7] New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/opinion/big-tech-algorithms-kids-discovery.html
[8] New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/opinion/internet-kids-social-media.html
[9] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf
[10] City of Falls Church: https://www.fallschurchva.gov/670/Library-Expansion-and-Renovation-Project
[11] Bronx Times: https://www.bxtimes.com/bronx-skateparks/
[12] New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/opinion/internet-kids-social-media.html
[13] CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/health/teen-hundreds-of-phone-notifications-report-wellness/index.html
[14] Ibid.
In the years following students’ return to in-person classes after the COVID-19 outbreak, questions about parents’ role in education and curriculum development—and the appropriateness of discussing controversial topics such as sex and gender orientation in the classroom—have come to the forefront of political debate.
On January 31, Harvard and Stanford Universities released the Education Recovery Scorecard, an assessment of student achievement following the COVID-19 pandemic learning loss.1 The report detailed the gains third- through eighth-grade students in 8,000 school districts across the country have made in their math and reading scores.2 The Education Recovery Scorecard results show that there has been significant recovery in these two subjects, though more needs to be done to help students reach basic levels of proficiency.
On Sunday, February 4, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a compromise bill intended to address border security concerns and to provide further funding for Ukraine’s military defense against Russia.1 In this post, we will examine the immigration-related contents of the compromise legislation and explore different perspectives about the border security bill.
Amidst the mosaic of national debates surrounding climate change, economic justice, and public health, there is a growing focus on the intersection of these issues and the design of our communities. The overwhelming majority of U.S. households own at least one vehicle, and the number of vehicles registered in the United States has continued to rise in recent years.1 Some argue that car dependency is a symptom of the design of American cities, others argue that it’s the cause.
In the weeks since the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, Israel has conducted a military campaign with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas as both a military and governing organization.1 The death toll in Gaza currently stands at around 22,000 Palestinians and 170 Israeli soldiers, in addition to the more than 1,200 people Hamas killed on October 7.2 While further negotiations over a second ceasefire are ongoing (as of January 3, 2024), officials in the United States and around the world are also concerned about broader regional and global conflict boiling over.3 Many in the United States share these concerns.4
As part of our ongoing series centered on the Israel-Hamas conflict, this post will review the U.S. foreign policy decisions. 
This is the first in a series of posts that will explore complex domestic policy, foreign policy, and global issues connected to the Israel-Hamas conflict. In the United States, there has been significant discussion and debate about what to do, both in terms of foreign policy and on the domestic front. In this series, we will examine rising antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate in the U.S., evaluate what the United States could and should do in the Middle East from multiple perspectives, and examine the impact the conflict is having on the United States as it navigates issues in the region and around the world.
:quality(70)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/3e10bd012c075d922d3faf6445098bfd/0205%20Math%20Scores%20AS%20TT%2003.jpg){kind=link}
