On January 31, the CEOs of Discord, Snapchat, Tiktok, X, and Meta testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is a combination of more than 400 cases accusing these companies of aiding the current youth mental health crisis. In the opinion of McLean Hospital, social media is known for being addictive as well as contributing to the deteriorating mental health of youths.
The number of teenage suicides have increased significantly during the last ten years. According to the CDC, “the suicide rate for male teens increased 31 percent between 2007 and 2015 and female teen suicides hit a 40-year high in 2015.” According to Pew Research Center, simultaneously teenage use of social media has increased as “97% of teens say they use the internet daily, compared with 92% of teens in 2014-15 who said the same”.
Jamie Zelazny, a social media expert, states that teenagers who use social media for more then two hours daily are more likely to struggle with suicidal thoughts as well as poor mental health. Social media platforms enable people to anonymously express their views and emotions, which allow it to be easier to spread harmful and cruel words. Increased education about the dangers of social media and how to stay safe online can assist teenagers in keeping a healthy mental state.
Many parents whose kids committed suicide due to cyberbullying were present in the hearing room holding pictures of their children. Senator Lindsey Graham claims this was “the largest [audience] I’ve seen in this room.” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, directly apologized to the families of the victims by getting up from his seat and facing them, looking at the photos of the children, and stating, “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through.”
Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO, apologized to the families as well. Although he did not turn to face them, he said, “I’m so sorry that we have not been able to prevent these tragedies. We work very hard to block all search terms related to drugs on our platform,” when asked about the children who have died from drugs that were bought on Snapchat.
The parents of the affected children expressed their thoughts on receiving apologies from big CEO’s: “Nothing that was said today was different than what we expected. It was a lot of promises and a lot of, quite honestly, a lot of talk without them really saying anything. The apology that he made, while it was appreciated, was a little bit too little, too late, of course,” said Neveen Radwan, whose daughter developed anorexia within a few months and nearly died after watching “healthy eating” videos on TikTok and Instagram.
The essential point of this hearing was to prevent child exploitation on social media as well as stopping the dangers of social media. Although it is unclear if any regulations will be created after this, both Republicans and Democrats have come together in consensus on how social media has become an extremely prevalent problem in regards to children.
Senate Chair Dick Durbin demanded significant bipartisan legislation to address the many issues young people face on the internet during his concluding remarks: “I think we need to get behind the idea that businesses exist primarily to be profitable and ask ourselves, ‘Profitability at what cost?’”
