Social media offers parents more controls.

But do they help?

SOURCE: The Associated Press
By Barbara Ortutay
Published August 10, 2022

Lexile®: 1290L

As concerns about social media’s for inappropriate and harmful material served

harmful effects on teens continue to rise, up by algorithms that can affect teens’ mental

platforms from Snapchat to TikTok to and physical well-being.

Instagram are bolting on new features they say

“These platforms know that their
will make their services safer and more age
algorithms can sometimes be amplifying
appropriate. But the changes rarely address
harmful content, and they’re not taking steps
the elephant in the room — the algorithms
to stop that,” said Irene Ly, privacy counsel at
pushing endless content that can drag anyone,
the nonprofit Common Sense Media. The more
not just teens, into harmful rabbit holes.
teens keep scrolling, the more engaged they

The tools do offer some help, such as get — and the more engaged they are, the

blocking strangers from messaging kids. But more profitable they are to the platforms, she

they also share some deeper flaws, starting said. “I don’t think they have too much

with the fact that teenagers can get around incentive to be changing that.”

limits if they lie about their age. The platforms

Take, for instance, Snapchat, which on
also place the burden of enforcement on
Tuesday introduced new parental controls in
parents. And they do little or nothing to screen
what it calls the “Family Center” — a tool that

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lets parents see who their teens are have honest talks about social media and the

messaging, though not the content of the dangers and pitfalls of the online world.

messages themselves. One catch: both parents

But many kids use a bewildering
and their children have to opt into to
variety of platforms, all of which are constantly
the service.
evolving — and that stacks the odds against

Nona Farahnik Yadegar, Snap’s parents expected to master and monitor the

director of platform policy and social impact, controls on multiple platforms, said Josh

likens it to parents wanting to know who their Golin, executive director of children’s digital

kids are going out with. advocacy group Fairplay.

If kids are headed out to a friend’s “Far better to require platforms to

house or are meeting up at the mall, she said, make their platforms safer by design and

parents will typically ask, “Hey, who are you default instead of increasing the workload on

going to meet up with? How do you know already overburdened parents,” he said.

them?” The new tool, she said, aims to give

The new controls, Golin said, also fail
parents “the insight they really want to have in
to address a myriad of existing problems with
order to have these conversations with their
Snapchat. These range from kids
teen while preserving teen privacy
misrepresenting their ages to “compulsive
and autonomy.”
use” encouraged by the app’s Snapstreak

These conversations, experts agree, feature to cyberbullying made easier by the

are important. In an ideal world, parents disappearing messages that still serve as

would regularly sit down with their kids and Snapchat’s claim to fame.

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 Farahnik Yadegar said Snapchat has Child safety and teen mental health

“strong measures” to deter kids from falsely are front and center in both Democratic and

claiming to be over 13. Those caught lying Republicans critiques of tech companies.

about their age have their account States, which have been much more

immediately deleted, she said. Teens who are aggressive about regulating technology

over 13 but pretend to be even older get one companies than the federal government, are

chance to correct their age. also turning their attention to the matter. In

March, several state attorneys general

Detecting such lies isn’t foolproof, but
launched a nationwide investigation into
the platforms have several ways to get at the
TikTok and its possible harmful effects on
truth. For instance, if a user’s friends are
young users’ mental health.
mostly in their early teens, it’s likely that the

user is also a teenager, even if they said they TikTok is the most popular social app

were born in 1968 when they signed up. U.S. teenagers use, according to a new report

Companies use artificial intelligence to look for out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center,

age mismatches. A person’s interests might which found that 67% say they use the

also reveal their real age. And, Farahnik Chinese-owned video sharing platform. The

Yadegar pointed out, parents might also find company has said that it focuses on age-

out their kids were fibbing about their birth appropriate experiences, noting that some

date if they try to turn on parental controls but features, such as direct messaging, are not

find their teens ineligible. available to younger users. It says features

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such as a screen-time management tool help Last fall, former Facebook employee-

young people and parents moderate how long turned whistleblower Frances Haugen exposed

children spend on the app and what they see. internal research from the company

But critics note such controls are leaky at best. concluding that the social network’s attention-

seeking algorithms contributed to mental

“It’s really easy for kids to try to get
health and emotional problems among
past these features and just go off on their
Instagram-using teens, especially girls. That
own,” said Ly of Common Sense Media.
revelation led to some changes; Meta, for
Instagram, which is owned by
instance, scrapped plans for an Instagram
Facebook parent Meta, is the second most
version aimed at kids under 13. The company
popular app with teens, Pew found, with 62%
has also introduced new parental control and
saying they use it, followed by Snapchat with
teen well-being features, such as nudging
59%. Not surprisingly, only 32% of teens
teens to take a break if they scroll for too long.
reported ever having used Facebook, down
Such solutions, Ly said, are “sort of
from 71% in 2014 and 2015, according to
getting at the problem, but basically going
the report.
around it and not getting to the root cause

of it.”

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The Snapchat app is seen on a mobile device in New York, Aug. 9, 2017. As concerns about social
media’s impact on teen psychology continue to rise, platforms from Snapchat to TikTok to
Instagram are bolting on new features they say will make their services safer and more age
appropriate. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

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The Instagram app is seen on the screen of a mobile device in New York, Friday, Aug. 23, 2019. As
concerns about social media’s impact on teen psychology continue to rise, platforms from Snapchat to
TikTok to Instagram are bolting on new features they say will make their services safer and more age
appropriate. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

© 2022 AVID WEEKLY | November 2022 | Page 6