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

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Despite this, helium says Meta is acceptable to comply with kid information laws.

By Emma Roth, a quality writer who covers the streaming wars, user tech, crypto, societal media, and overmuch more. Previously, she was a writer and exertion astatine MUO.

Sep 25, 2024, 6:40 PM UTC

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing backmost connected the thought that societal media straight harms teen intelligence health. During an interrogation with The Verge’s Alex Heath, Zuckerberg said that “the bulk of the high-quality probe retired determination suggests that there’s nary causal transportation astatine a wide standard betwixt these things.”

This echoes the connection Zuckerberg gave successful beforehand of Congress successful January during a proceeding astir kid safety, wherever helium argued that existing probe hasn’t shown a causal nexus betwixt societal media and mediocre teen intelligence health. As my workfellow Adi Robertson pointed retired astatine the time, it’s hard to beryllium causal links, and research shows societal media could origin some antagonistic and affirmative impacts connected an adolescent’s intelligence health.

“The world probe shows thing that I think, to me, fits much with what I’ve seen of however the platforms operate,” Zuckerberg told The Verge. “But it’s antagonistic to what a batch of radical think, and I deliberation that’s going to beryllium a reckoning that we’ll person to have.” Zuckerberg argues that giving parents the tools they request to bounds their child’s societal media usage is the close attack for the company:

You tin play a relation successful trying to marque thing amended adjacent if the happening wasn’t caused by you successful the archetypal place... I deliberation that we tin play a relation successful giving radical parental controls implicit the apps. I deliberation that parental controls are besides truly important due to the fact that parents person antithetic ways that they privation to rise their kids.

Earlier this month, Instagram announced that it’s going to determination every teen connected the level into a much backstage account with restricted DMs and a “Sleep Mode” diagnostic to bounds notifications astatine night. Meta besides launched a caller suite of parental controls for Instagram and Messenger past twelvemonth that gives parents much penetration into what their kids are doing connected some platforms.

Concerns surrounding the interaction of societal media connected teen intelligence wellness heightened pursuing the release of the Facebook Papers successful 2021, which revealed interior documents suggesting Meta was alert of the antagonistic interaction Instagram had connected immoderate teens. US lawmakers person since ramped up efforts to age-gate societal media platforms, with galore backing the surgeon general’s proposal of putting a tobacco-like informing statement connected the networks.

Zuckerberg erstwhile again reiterated that helium believes app store owners similar Google and Apple should grip property verification, not idiosyncratic platforms. He adds that it’s “not precise excusable” for them to debar taking work for the measurement due to the fact that “every clip you spell bash a outgo connected your phone, determination already is fundamentally kid property verification.”

Despite Zuckerberg’s skepticism astir nonstop ties to societal media and intelligence health, helium told The Verge that the institution volition “follow the government’s absorption and the laws” connected kid information if they’re passed. “I would accidental that the quality to get propulsion notifications and get distracted, from my perspective, seems similar a overmuch greater contributor to intelligence wellness issues than a batch of the circumstantial apps.”