Broadlines
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Broadlines
Your kids are not safe online | Sharon McMahon
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There is no federal law in the United States preventing your 8-year-old from making a social media account. No minimum age requirement. No comprehensive national legislation. Just piecemeal state policies and a social infrastructure that can't keep up with the technology it's supposed to regulate. On this week's #FQBroadlines, hosts Rae Williams and Natalie Lizarraga sit down with author, educator and podcaster Sharon McMahon to talk about the very real and very urgent crisis of kids on the internet. From why the algorithm is engineered to be addictive to how social media is driving a mental health emergency among teenage girls to why consumer protection laws might be the only tool powerful enough to hold these platforms accountable. Sharon is here to break down what's actually happening and what it would take to fix it.
Follow Sharon McMahon: @SharonSaysSo
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Hosted by Rae Williams and Natalie Lizarraga
Directed by Sydney Kramer
Executive Produced by Sydney Kramer and Rachel Apirian
Produced by Rae Williams and Natalie Lizarraga
Filmed & Edited by Chanelle Tyson
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Broadlines is a production of The Female Quotient and recorded in Los Angeles, California.
If social media platforms had warning labels, they should say warning.
SPEAKER_02This program may cause death.
unknownDamn.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Broadlines, a weekly video podcast by the Female Quotient, where real headlines meet real conversation. I'm Ray Williams, an entertainment, lifestyle, and culture journalist. And I'm Natalie Lizaraga, a journalist and news anchor. Today on Broadlines, we're talking about how social media is causing a mental health crisis that is disproportionately affecting young teenage girls.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna ask some very uncomfortable questions. What does it actually take to protect the next generation in a world that's permanently online that we almost can't escape? And who takes responsibility for that?
SPEAKER_00Today's guest is gonna break that all down for us. Sharon McMahon, you know her online is Sharon says so. Hopefully you're following. A former government and law teacher, turned author, podcaster, and educator who has sparked this movement of informing and engaging citizens in this country with her nonpartisan, fact-first approach. We are so excited to have you on our show. Sharon, welcome to Broadlife.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Broadlife. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00I just want to look at the data that we've seen when it comes to teen girls in social media. What confirmed what you already knew and what were you genuinely surprised about when you see these numbers?
SPEAKER_02You know, it's always shocking to hear uh statistics about the number of girls who are being negatively impacted emotionally. We always think about, you know, feeling mad or feeling jealous or, you know, just having a negative feeling, but I can't believe she said that. Uh, but to actually have so many negative feelings that it's resulting in physical injury to yourself, that your own mental well-being is so uh negatively impacted that it results in having to visit the hospital, that's a really disturbing thing that we have to address. We have to talk about uh where is it coming from and what can be done about it. It's you know, I'm a I'm a mom and I I know how challenging it is to exist in eighth grade as a as a girl who is, you know, all of her friends are having fun without her, and what does that do when you can see evidence of it? There's a lot to unpack. I don't know if our psyches are really prepared for everything that is happening to us at this moment. Wow.
SPEAKER_00So much has changed since we were teenagers. Yeah. Like I didn't wasn't connected to the world as as they are now with so much information coming in. Like I think I was dialing up on aim.
SPEAKER_01That was like the closest thing. And you know, a lot of people argue that we over-protect kids in our physical world, which I mean, I I think they're very protected. It's it's a good thing, but we vastly under-protect them online. How can policy help us return to a childhood kind of play-based model instead of, you know, this phone-based model without overstepping, you know, into maybe government overreach or, you know, who other people parenting other people's kids, if you will?
SPEAKER_02I think it's a great question and one that we need to be having at a policy level and not simply at a parenting level because this is both of those things, right? It's parenting, but it's also policy because there are many other activities that we know can be harmful for children that we regulate at a government level. We don't just decide some parents can put their kids in car seats and some don't have to. It's parental choice. We've decided that some things are so risky that everybody needs to be have have safety measures uh that are put in place for them. We don't allow 14-year-olds to just decide, I'm gonna take up vaping today. You know, like they might be able to skirt the rules, but we don't just allow them to walk into a convenience store and and buy the materials they need for that. So uh in addition to individual parenting, of course, uh, we do need to be having the conversation about what does it look like for uh everyone in a school to not have access to uh something that might be harmful, like you know, tobacco products or like uh social media platforms that may be uh causing some of these issues. So the the public policy aspect is one of the trickiest because, of course, as the United States, we tend to be highly individualistic, we tend to value freedom of choice. They're my children, I can decide what's best for them. Uh and then on the other side, we also have these very, very real safety concerns that don't only impact your children, they impact the entire country, right? Like the what's happening with an eighth grader today is happening with all the eighth graders or with many of the eighth graders. So uh in in terms of like how not to get involved in government overreach, I think one of the most important conversations we need to be having is uh establishing what are safe levels of involvement in social media. And these are things that are being well that are being researched and substantiated right now. What do constitute safe levels? Is it none for children under a certain age? Is it one hour a week? Um, that's actually in some ways harder to to create a time limit than it is uh to just have a hard yes or no. We don't say to children, it's fine if you smoke five cigarettes, but more than five is is too harmful, right? So I I would argue that in in cases of especially younger teenagers, that likely the correct answer is is a really, really limited or no use of social media, and that that's the safe amount because we we don't have an established safe amount. Yeah. Just like we don't have an established safe amount of alcohol that is appropriate for a 12-year-old. It's just safer that they don't do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and even if we did have an established amount, how would we even go about kind of enforcing that? Because I don't know about you, but on Instagram, I have my thing set to like two hours, and when it pops up, I'm like, well, I guess I'll continue scrolling today. So I can't imagine if I'm making that decision, having to then kind of police my 12-year-old into saying, okay, well, your social media said one hour, you know, what do you do? Give me the phone, so I I I can see where that might be, you know, the best solution is uh is a better policy that's kind of eliminating it.
SPEAKER_00It's so interesting you say that. I've never thought about it that way. Just saying no, I'm a mom too, and saying no, like I think of my toddler. Well, this whole whole thing about toddlers and no screen times, wait till they're three. We're like people are inundated with that information of like don't give it to them. But then when it comes to like my niece or nephew who are 12 and 11, like they have phones, and nobody has policed that, but they're like really hardcore about the don't have any screen time till three. And so it's like, why didn't why aren't we doing that the entire way? They're still kids. It doesn't make much sense to me.
SPEAKER_02There's still children with developing brains, but but when to when you're a 12-year-old, you have the ability to make life-altering decisions in ways that you even a three-year-old does not. Three-year-old can't decide to get into a car with somebody who's drunk driving or is high or you know, is uh engaging in social media activities that can have lifelong uh consequences. So I would argue that the stakes are perhaps even higher for preteens and young teenagers than they are for our little toddlers, you know, watching an episode of Bluey, for example.
SPEAKER_00It's yeah, it's very scary to think about having a teenager right now.
SPEAKER_02There was an incident recently, somebody pulled up an old video of a mutual friend in which that that video uh was like of a 12-year-old her, you know, having fun, being silly, singing a song in a silly voice, you know, like people should be free to live their childhood, right? Uh and they reposted it recently as a way to try to humiliate her. And this this video was taken like six years prior. It was used as a tool to try to harm her many years later, and then it feels like that person had been hanging on to that video for all of those years. It's such so great. Um, and so those are the kinds of things then that you make you feel paranoid, makes you feel like every aspect of my life is being filmed and that somebody can use it against me at some point in the future. Children have to engage in self-censoring, even when they're just having fun with their friends. You should be able to sing a song in a silly voice with your best friends and not have it used against you six years later. I mean, aren't you glad that a lot of what you did in when you're children is not on the internet? It's on a VHS somewhere.
SPEAKER_01Maybe eight all the way through at least 25.
SPEAKER_00I am so glad that this was not it's a relieving you're relieved that that that stuff. I feel so that's so cruel to do to another girl. Yes, um, we've seen other governments and other countries try to, because this is a worldwide thing. We're talking about the US for us, obviously, but this is happening all over. Social media is everywhere. In Denmark, they want 15 to be the minimum age to create any sort of social media account. France is exploring a digital curfew where you have to be offline. South Korea's banned phones in schools. So globally, we've noticed that everyone is taking a different approach because this is a global problem. Which of these do you think would make the biggest difference for teen girls?
SPEAKER_02My personal viewpoint is that there needs to be a minimum age to create an account. Uh, I think the, you know, getting off of the internet at a certain time each night so you can get sleep. As a longtime teacher, I can tell you that like adolescent sleep habits are a huge problem and like go to bed is one of the, you know, the biggest things we can be telling our children, go to sleep. Um, that's it, of course, it's a little harder to police those kinds of things. It's a little hard, you know, people figure out ways to get around it.
SPEAKER_01Like oh yeah, I just straight up ignore mine.
SPEAKER_02You just are like, mm-hmm, you know, like by bypass, passcode. Uh, you know, and there are exceptions that you can always think of. What if a teenager has a job at at the Burger King and they need to get picked up? There's so many possible exceptions for things like curfew rules. This isn't to say that they have no value. Um, but I just don't think that the value is there to allow children to create social media accounts. You know, I have been I've been online for a few years, you know, like I have a lot of followers. I know what it's like to um be on the receiving end of hate comments, even from strangers, right? Even from people who are misinformed and saying crazy things. I understand how challenging that can be to work through. And now imagine um people at your place of employment or people at your school being able to make those kinds of comments about you uh anonymously. I saw what you were wearing today. You look ridiculous, you look like trash. You, you know, like fill in the blank with the insults you can hurl at somebody. I just don't see the upside. I don't see the upside of subjecting our children knowingly to this kind of environment.
SPEAKER_01Especially when we grew up, most of us without social media and did just fine. We didn't, you know what I mean? Like like I said, there are advantages to it and we know what those are, but do they really outweigh the harm is something that I always wonder. Um, and especially, you know, many of us as grown adults. I I don't know if you've seen the the little bricks or whatever that you can put your phone in. I have to like so if if that's what's needed for us as grown adults that I apparently have authority over our own minds, what happens to a developing mind? I think, you know, it it must be double. But you know, for women in our audience who are both mothers and professionals, what do you say to the mom that feels, you know, completely overwhelmed or outnumbered, you know, by the tech and the pressure and the platform some of what Natalie was mentioning, which is, you know, do we give them screens? Do we not give them screens? What's your advice for moms in the position where having to decide what do I do with my 13-year-old when everybody has a phone and everyone's on here?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I can tell you that my older children, we gave them phones and then used like all the screen time limits and all the parental controls. Um, and that was a constant battle with the children. It was a constant battle. Can I just have 15 more minutes? Can I just, you know, like the amount of negotiating, don't you remember like arguing with your own parents about like I mean that yeah, you just develop more arguing skills. That's all it is. You're just honing arguing skills.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and you'll break eventually.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you you know which parent is more susceptible. I would say to parents who are wondering the right route to take. Um, in my mind, it's giving your children a phone when it's appropriate to do so, say 12 years old, that does not have access to the internet. And that way they can still engage with their friends by talking on the phone. I listen to my daughter talk on the phone all of the time, which some research shows is actually a really healthy way to build connections. Really? Talking on the phone is good for children. You're listening to tone of voice, uh, you are engaging in an interpersonal relationship in ways that you don't get when you're just texting. We all know that you can't hear inflections with texting, which is why we have to read them. Emojis. Read the inflection. You know, in my mind, having done it both ways, the easier and better route is the phone without access to the internet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I find it so interesting that talking on the phone part too, because I feel like that's a lost art. I feel like that's something as a teen. And you had to not only you had to call people and speak to their parents. Yeah. To speak to them. Like I had to be like, hello, Mr. Such and Such, can I speak to your son? Like what? And I feel like most teens today can't imagine having to, you know, there's no, there's no house lines anymore. So can't imagine having to, you know, hey Aunt Sharon, can I speak to, you know, so we're missing that part of it as well.
SPEAKER_00Quick Ray's uh analogy for being a child was can I talk to your son as a little girl?
SPEAKER_01Um if you could get one policy passed at the federal level tomorrow to protect especially teen girls online, what would it be and why that one?
SPEAKER_02If I could get one policy passed at the federal level, it would be a minimum age requirement to be able to access social media platforms that have algorithms that are designed to um be addictive, right? But that's what part of what makes social media enjoyable to use is it learns what you like and it gives you more of it, totally been there. And also it feeds you things you didn't know you were interested in. Oh, I didn't know that I was interested in miniature dog houses, you know, like fascinating. Or miniature cows. Turns out I definitely am miniature cows now. Exactly. I absolutely need a Shetland pony, you know, like those are those are the things that bring us delight, which I fully partake in. This is not a I work in social media, so this is not a like uh, you know, under no circumstances should anyone ever go on the internet. Um but you know, those those algorithms are also designed to be addictive and also designed uh to help us feel angry about things because the more we can feel angry, the more likely we are to continue to use it. I mean, if you think back to times in in you know United States history, say 9-11, when something scary had happened, you immediately go to your television, you immediately tune in, you want to find out more. Um, that the same is true, that same neural pathway is true on the internet, it's on social media. If you feel angry about something, I can't believe he did that. It makes you want to keep finding out more. Yes, you keep scrolling, you want to read the comments, and now that you're deep in the comments, now the algorithm is really learned. Oh, oh, she'll read this for 20 years. So it's designed to keep you on the platform, it's designed to be addictive. As you're saying, like if adults have to implement external limits with like I'm breaking my like a full break. Yes. Uh I I really think at the federal level we should have a minimum age requirement to access platforms that we know are addictive, just like we have minimum age levels to access other things that we know are addictive.
SPEAKER_01What would you actually recommend that age to be in in from your you know research and everything that you've kind of looked at?
SPEAKER_02There's not a magical age in which somebody's brain matures, you know. Like we all know some 25-year-old men who are like, you should not be on the internet, right? Like we can all think of a field, right? Ideally, there'd be some kind of maturity test, but that's not happening, right?
SPEAKER_00They'd probably cheat on that cookie. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02They'd give it to a girl and be like, take this for me. Yes. I mean, ideally, you'd like to say you need to be an adult to use this, but I will I will make one argument against making the age 18, which is the same argument for driving a car, which is that it is better to have a trusted adult help you learn how to do something reasonably safely while you are still living in their home, as opposed to just being like, best of luck. Yeah. You know, you're old enough now and naturally. Exactly. Maybe the research would demonstrate in the future that 18 is the right age, but at right now, I would say 16 or 17, so that they have a chance to learn how to operate a car, learn how to use social media with parental guidance before they leave home.
SPEAKER_00So we've seen data that shows that girls spending five plus hours a day on social media, they're actually three times more likely to experience depression. Does the current US legislation focus enough on this time on the device, the time that these these teenagers are spending on the device, or are we kind of only scratching the surface when it comes to how much content someone's consuming?
SPEAKER_02There's there's basically no national legislation about you know curtailing the use of social media for teenagers. There's some there's piecemeal legislation at the state level, there are school policies, phones away for the day. Um, but we don't actually have any kind of comprehensive legislation about this of any kind. Aside from platform-level policies that say, yes, I am 13. There's nothing illegal about your eight-year-old making a social media account. One of the big challenges with this is just how how slow Congress is to act on any kind of technology. They are very slow to act uh on in a regulatory fashion with anything that is like new and cutting edge. There have been uh social media hearings where the CEO of a social media platform has testified before Congress and they're asking the platform CEO questions, and a member of Congress asked the tech CEO, is your platform Wi-Fi? Like they legitimately believed that the social media channel was Wi-Fi. And this the tech CEO was like, Senator, no sir. No, my platform is not Wi-Fi. Okay, so I don't think that every member of Congress is that um uneducated about social media, but certainly some of them are. They don't know the difference between Wi-Fi and social media. And it's not it's not that they don't have access to this information, they probably have a bunch of 20-year-olds that work in their office. They could say, so is this Wi-Fi? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01They could ask that's who is kind of making or not making decisions for your teenager.
SPEAKER_02Right, exactly. So when the per when the group that's in charge of making these kinds of rules doesn't know the difference between social media platform A and a Wi-Fi connection. It makes the it makes the process very slow. Yeah, I can imagine. It makes it very slow. There needs to be some kind of speeding up of the process. Yes, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00At least on the federal level. I mean, like you said, parents can do only do so much. You know, you feel that pressure. We talked about arguing. Like you feel the pressure from your teenage daughter or son when it comes to the internet, you're like, finally, you're just gonna you're gonna break because honestly, you get annoyed. You're like, I just am so sick of having this argument with you. We have to come to a compromise. Here, just take the phone. You know, like there's so many things, and then it's just a slippery slope that there's no regulations for when they do finally have it. Like, say you give in and you're like, Well, I hope there's stuff lined up to protect you, but there just isn't.
SPEAKER_02I can tell you that I recently, uh not long ago, got a new account on a social media platform um that I had not been on before. And so this the algorithm of this platform doesn't know anything about me, right? Like I intentionally did not feed it like, where are you from? What's your age? Like I did not give it any information. And I can tell you that the content that I am served on that platform while it tries to figure out what I like and what I interact with is disturbing. Yeah, it is disturbing. Some of it is borderline porn, it is it is animated, borderline, very questionable content. Where it's like children should not be saying this. Yeah, um, some of it is so um profane, where like words that children should never read. This platform does not know how old I am, you know. Um, so the this is part of the the challenge here too, is that even if you are the most hardcore parent and you're like absolutely not, no way in hell, you can't keep your uh children's friends off of that. You can't keep your child from accessing it via their friends or via the hallway at school. And so the that that's why, you know, like it's just better if we have rules that apply to everybody, huh?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So Jonathan Haidt, who is the author of The Anxious Generation, describes puberty as high a high plasticity period where the brain locks down adult patterns like learning languages and developing motor skills. So, why is social media harmful for that particular development phase?
SPEAKER_02I think one of the most harmful things about social media, in addition to everything else we've discussed, is that it is preventing people from doing things in the real world. Most of what you love. About the real world. People you admire in the real world are not spending all of their time online. Yeah. The people that you look back on in history and think they really did some amazing things. They were not spending their time scrolling. They were spending their time engaging in real life. And it's preventing people from doing that.
SPEAKER_01And to go with that, do you think that, you know, the teens that are on social media right now will be able to adapt without those skills if they have to. So for instance, I remember I did this program called Semester at Sea. And I did it in like 2010. So we we had Facebook, but we I don't I don't think I don't think it was Instagram around, maybe barely. I think maybe Instagram came out right after. But we had um we definitely had Facebook because I remember we would go to the McDonald's and different countries to like log on to upload our pictures. So we had that. But while we were on the ship, it's a basically a program that you know the ship sails around the world and you're taking classes on the ship. We didn't really have strong Wi-Fi, and you had to write your friends, you couldn't like text them and be like, Meet me here. You had to write them notes and like say, Meet me here, or I'm gone here and do this. And like, I remember it being so strange because we were so used to just being able to instantly text and like you know, kind of send each other pictures and send each other things. And you know, I came back out of that being like, Well, do I need to text someone if I tell you meet me here at eight? Just meet me here at eight. And I wonder what that kind of like adjustment is going to be if they'll even have to adjust four teens if they come into situations where like you just can't use your phone, you just can't use social media.
SPEAKER_02You know, one of the uh hallmarks of uh some mental health challenges is a constant need for reassurance, right? Like sometimes people who have anxiety have a constant need for reassurance, and that is one of the tools that social media and a tech forward childhood um it it enables that constant need for reassurance. If I say meet me at eight, I have the ability to contact you four more times to be sure. Hey, I'm on my way. Yeah, hey, is eight still good? Hey, I'm outside, hey, I'm standing by the light pole. Um that it's actually helping us develop that neural pathway for the constant need for reassurance. Uh which is can certainly be helpful if you're 12 and your mom's picking you up after the basketball game. Um, but it can also be harmful if every aspect of our life has to be checked and checked and checked and checked and checked uh that can feed into people's anxiety. Yeah. Uh I do think though that children, especially Gen Z, uh, that the pendulum is going to start swinging away from social media. Oh good. And I'm curious about your thoughts on this too. Like, do you see that trend emerging that it's going to be uh less enjoyable? Like people don't want everything they've ever done documented and uploaded onto the internet and a move away from that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I I I agree. I have a um one of my friends' kids, she's 30 now, which was unbelievable to me. But she's kind of she's still considered millennial, but she's very, very like she babysits for me and my 18-month-old, and she's like, Oh yeah, no, I just have a digital camera, like, and but will you need me? And I'm like, Yeah, I need you to have your phone, you're watching my child, and she's like, Okay, I'll turn it on for you. And I'm like, Whoa, why? Can't imagine because she's like, I just don't want she's like, I take them on my phone, on my camera, on my digital camera, and then I upload everything, then I decide what's going out into the world as opposed to documenting the whole thing. And I was like, Wow, like that's what I used to do. I used to go to a bar with a digital camera that maybe made it home or didn't, and then it would go like in a Facebook, like it would go on Facebook, and that was it. Endless Facebook albums. Yeah, and then like that was it, but it didn't, like it was like a week later, or like, you know, and so it's interesting to me, they're not really into all they've already stopped drinking, and they're not into like any of the stuff that we were as elder millennials, so it's interesting for me to see, and it also makes me happy because I get worried for my young daughter because this stuff seems so overwhelming, and I'm not ready yet. And to know that this generation is kind of pushing themselves away from documenting everything always makes me feel better. When it comes to a warning, a lot of people compare social media to cigarettes. Well, cigarettes have a warning that if you do this or that or you're not of this age, you can't have them. A lot of people argue that that is what we need to have on social media, but beyond the label itself, what legal or regulatory powers would this designation actually unlock the government to hold these tech giants accountable?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean a a a parental warning label. You remember that when they started putting um explicit warnings on music where it was like E parental warning. Couldn't find me want it more. That's right, that's right. You had to be a certain age, yeah. That that times have changed, clearly. You had to be a certain age to buy the C D with the E. And there was like TLC. You had to get the clean. Oh gross. The clean versions are never good. Sorry, they're just not. But I do remember there was a label. Well, and they still have the label, you know, and they're the labels still exist. But if we're gonna put a warning label on something, now we're getting into consumer protection laws, right? And so some people think that consumer protection laws are the the uh the tool by which we will be able to regulate social media platforms, consumer protection laws. And we've seen a number of lawsuits uh where an individual has sued or a group of people have sued uh social media platforms saying your product harmed me when I was a child. And this actually, one of these cases just recently wrapped up. Your product harmed me when I was a child. I am owed reparations from the harmful addictive nature of your product. Uh and so there is one school of thought that says that products that are made available for sale uh in the United States have to be reasonably safe for consumers, right? Now you might be able to argue that, like, well, those social media platforms are free to use, but they are certainly selling your information and you have to consent to that transaction. I will go on your platform for free, and in exchange you're gonna collect all this data on me and then you're gonna sell it to third parties. Right. That there is a transactional relationship to a social media platform. Um, that if we start using consumer protection laws saying, no, your product needs to be reasonably safe to use. And if it's not reasonably safe to use, you need to warn us in advance. And if you don't, uh then you can be held liable legally for some of the negative effects of what's happening to society or to an individual.
SPEAKER_01You know, if we had these warnings, would we even heed them? You know what I mean? Because I know for the like the explicit warning that kind of made me want more the TLC CD even more. And I actually did real life get in trouble for singing one of the bad words on that um in front of my dad. And he was like, How do you even have this version? I'm like, that's the version I got. Um but we're we're you know, we're seeing these ER visits for self-harm for teenage girls, you know, tripling almost between 2010 and 2020. And I think that trend also aligns with the the rise of smartphone usage, and you know, with the addictive qualities and the the fact that we might want warnings, do you think US policy response to social media related incidents should be similar to, you know, vaping or smoking or you know, underage drinking or you know, all the different consequences that we do have, and you know, even if we have these warnings and all of that.
SPEAKER_02A lot of the research says that exactly what you're saying, that warning labels sometimes just make things more desirable. Uh especially if your brain is not all the way functioning, you're like, you know, like my parents don't like it, so I do. Yeah. You know, like that. The vibes of that make it in some ways even more irresistible. Um, so I don't, I honestly don't know how effective a warning label on social media is going to be for an adolescent. Um adolescents by nature kind of view themselves as ir as invincible. Like it could happen, but it probably won't. I probably won't get in a car accident. I probably won't get addicted to vaping. Like it's fine. Uh so this invincible nature of your not fully formed brain, I don't know that you're able to consent when you are given a warning label, like, yes, I fully consent to what could happen to me in the future. I don't know. I think that's too much to ask of a 15-year-old to give consent to what might happen to them in the future.
SPEAKER_01So do you think if there was the, you know, a policy response that there were consequences? So, like if for instance, like if you I mean, I guess for smoking and vaping, you walk into the, you know, place and they have you have to like show your ID, and then it's like, you know, if you don't, the um, the vendor who sold it to you or even alcohol is held responsible for that. Um, do you think that we can see policy that has a similar reform? And I know there have been some lawsuits in that direction, but do you think that's coming?
SPEAKER_02It's probably coming that uh people are going to start suing the platforms that enable students or enable children to download these social media platforms. To download them. Yes. Not just use them, but download them. The access is largely via app stores on the different, you know, different phone platforms, right? That's interesting. So it's exactly like what you're talking about, like the convenience store that sells you the tobacco products when you're underage can get in trouble for selling those products to you. Uh, just like uh a liquor store selling a 19-year-old, they can get in trouble. Uh, is it potentially coming that app stores themselves can get in trouble for dispensing uh harmful products to children? I I it's not an unreasonable thing to think is in the future. It's certainly not, we're not here, but I I can absolutely see that moving forward.
SPEAKER_01And that's interesting because I always think about it as you would go after the platform itself, but going after the distributor of the platform, because that's true. Nobody, if you have an underage drinking situation, nobody says, Oh, I'm gonna sue Hennessy. They sue the, you know, the whoever it is that soldier. Both of those things, right?
SPEAKER_02Like to uh you have to make it illegal for an underage person to use first, and then you uh enforce the law in part by going after the people who dispense that regulated item.
SPEAKER_00Well, according to Australia's Online Safety Amendment Act, social media platforms could be fined up to 49.5 million for failing to properly verify someone's age as old enough to get onto these platforms. So could a platform first liability model maybe work here in the US? Or because people love this one, do our First Amendment protections make that legal impossible, like legally impossible for us to do?
SPEAKER_02So I think this is a very interesting question and a very interesting legal frontier. It's certainly untested at this point, but the Supreme Court actually recently heard a case about age verification of adult content. Uh they literally just heard this case uh during the last Supreme Court term in which people sued saying that a certain state's age verification law for adult uh porn content violated their First Amendment rights, saying I should not have to, I have a right to be anonymous on the internet, I should not have to upload my government ID to be able to access this content. And the Supreme Court said you actually don't have a First Amendment right to be free from age verification. You have no First Amendment right to be free from age verification. Now, it doesn't mean that this is a direct one-to-one for adult porn content and social media, but the premise is reasonably the same. And I can see this happening in the future potentially, that you if you don't have a right to be free from age verification uh for content that is deemed only age appropriate for adults, then you theoretically don't have a right to be free from age verification for content that could be s viewed as only appropriate for adults.
SPEAKER_00Denmark, France, and Malaysia enacting bans or digital curfews, we kind of touched on this. Is the US at risk becoming kind of a digital wild, wild West compared to other nations that are actually doing things and enforcing them?
SPEAKER_02Probably. I mean, that's the the truth of the matter, pro probably. Yeah you know, this this going back to regulated uh regulated materials, the UK recently banned tobacco products for everyone moving forward. If you were born after a certain time period, you're done.
SPEAKER_01Even if you're 21, like even if you get to the age you can't have it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're you're done. Um, so I I don't see the United States going that far. Yeah. Uh, but other countries are really leading the way when it comes to regulating harmful products for young people. Because again, a young person can't consent to becoming addicted. They cannot make an informed decision to say it's fine with me if I become addicted to tobacco or social media. Um, so I I don't know that the United States is going to be on the forefront of regulation given that some members of Congress think social media is Wi-Fi. Uh I I don't know that we're we're going to be the world leaders. Uh, but we certainly have some other good examples to look to. And they're gonna help us collect data on what happens when we eliminate uh social media for young people. What happens in five years? Yeah. And that might be an impetus for actually creating meaningful change in the United States.
SPEAKER_01One of the things I want to ask you is because we live in such a world now where social media is not just a platform for you to get addicted to and enjoy, but also a way that people now have careers and make money. And of course, I know there are a variety of teenage girls that are saying, I want to be a content creator, I want to go into content creation. Of course, that that's a viable job now. I think we need to stop kind of pretending that being an influencer or being a content creator is just, you know, not a worthy profession. People are making money that way and making a living that way, and sometimes, you know, more than the more noble of the professions, like, you know, being a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer. And so for, you know, young girls who would want to do that and maybe start in their teens. And then also you have a variety of people who, you know, go viral by accident. And then, you know, I always see, you know, some of the teens that are like, you know, coming up in the industry and they're actresses or whatever it is, and it's like, you know, account ran by mom and dad or whatever it is. What is the advice that you have for, you know, those teens even and those parents who say, okay, well, there might be something here in terms of my child actually having a future or a career in social media, but also it's a wild world. I almost feel like it's the same as like, you know, being a child actor at this point is like you're, you know, a teenage social media star. And we saw what happened to a lot of the child actors. A lot of them didn't make it out. So, you know, how do we for people who, you know, balance the realities of that as a profession and a real thing that we can do and the harms of it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I mean, I have a career in social media, so no shade to content creators. Content creators are what make it interesting to be on the internet, right? Right? If the internet what is the internet without content creation? Like this, you you actually have a we we should all thank content creators, quality content creators. That's what makes it interesting to be on social media. But child actors are far more regulated than social media content creators. I can tell you that aside from some FTC disclosures where if you have a brand partnership, you're required to be like, this is an ad. Aside from that, there is almost no regulation when it comes to content creation. If you're a child actor, you can only work so many hours a day. Yeah, you can only do certainly bank accounts your parents have to eat the sugar on set. Exactly. Your parents have to put your money away, you gotta go to school. Like that is heavily regulated. Uh, and any child actor will tell you that like sometimes those regulations they were like they they sucked at the time, they didn't like it. Uh, you know, like we even have like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. We have to cast twins on full house because one two-year-old can't do the scene too many times. Do you know what I mean? Uh that's simply not true. And actually, we've started seeing some states like Tennessee have uh enacted bans on parents monetizing their minor children's content online. And so now there's been the question of like, will some of the big influencers, family vlogger type influencers who live in Tennessee, will they leave the states if they're unable to monetize their the content involving their children? And that's obviously TBD that just recently passed. Uh so I do think again, we're gonna see a piecemeal legislation. Right. California might be one of the next uh dominoes to start enacting that kind of legislation. They certainly have heavily regulated uh the child acting industry. Right. I can see them regulating the child influencer industry, even if the account is run by their mom and it's like, hey, it's me, Sharon, here's my baby, and today my baby's gonna, you know, put her hair in pigtails. Even if the child is not um uh, you know, creating the content, they're being uh featured in the content in a fashion that they're unable to consent to because they're minors.
SPEAKER_00Um we have a little fill-in-the-blank game that we like to play here. So a few words, one word, whatever you like. You're gonna you're we're gonna read the sentence and then blank and you can feel in it how you feel, okay? Number one is before handing a kid a smartphone, every parent should blink. Look in the mirror five more times.
SPEAKER_02Check it twice and then check it three times and then check it four times five more times. Uh really reconsider before handing your child a smartphone. If social media platforms had warning labels, they should say warning. This this program may cause death.
unknownDamn.
SPEAKER_02That has legitimately happened, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00You said damn.
SPEAKER_02That was not a genuine visceral reaction. And that is.
SPEAKER_01When you say it like that, that should be the warning.
SPEAKER_00You know, one word that I'd use to describe the world's response to the teen mental health crisis is sad.
SPEAKER_02Sad. They've done way too little about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The emotion teenage girls feel most after scrolling for an hour is anxiety. Yeah. And then you have a teen, so you probably see this with your with her friends and stuff. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00If I could delete one feature from every social media platform, it would be.
SPEAKER_02That's a good question. I'd like to say algorithm and c go back to going back to uh sequential friends only. Uh I although I do acknowledge that I've become interested in the Highland cows because of the algorithm. You know, like I have found delight in a number of things. But for teenagers, a sequential out algorithm-free friends only, like I'm just showing you the pictures your friends posted. Or cows. Or the only ones I can do.
SPEAKER_01You can have puppy videos, great, animals, or your friends.
SPEAKER_02If you had to ban one social media trend overnight, it would be people who are uh who try to embarrass other people with their viral content. You know, like the the idea that we're all just laughing at somebody's misfortune, yeah. Uh that's a really unhealthy thing for our psyches. It really is.
SPEAKER_00The stat about teen girls in social media that keeps you up at night.
SPEAKER_02Just the percentage of teen girls who feel like they who feel a sense of hopelessness.
SPEAKER_01Besides taking away the phone, what's one thing parents can do today that could actually help their kids?
SPEAKER_02Help our children learn how to use social media appropriately and model what appropriate social media use looks like. You know, like guilty, you know, like I'm certainly not speaking from a high horse here. Uh, but if we want our kids to do better, we have to do better. The whole like do as I say, not as I do, does not work. So we parents can begin by modeling the better behavior. They can we can begin by having friends over for dinner instead of spending the whole night on social media, or reading a book instead of getting mad in the Instagram comments.
SPEAKER_00Um, okay, last one here. In ten years, we'll look back at kids' unrestricted access to social media the same way we look back at letting 12-year-olds walk home from school and drink wine with their lunch.
SPEAKER_02Which was a thing that people u used to just do.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_02I missed that one.
SPEAKER_00Can we talk about our takeaways from from having this conversation with you? And thank you so much for for coming and having with it. It's been very interesting, and like there's a lot of things I don't know, and as a parent, I feel like I want to know so much information. But at the same time, what I gathered from this is like keeping it simple might just be the best thing for your kid. So you don't need the phone, maybe you just wait until they want to have that conversation with you, but they're having it with their friends, but like you have a phone that is only for communication. I love that. And then we can go outside and make sure I'm modeling the things that I would want to see instead of just telling my kids what what should be done. So I think it's important that us as parents like aren't constantly on our phones, even though I love to scroll, especially at the end of the day. Especially at the end of the day. So it's like if I'm not doing it, why would I expect my child to use it responsibly if I'm if I'm using it as like a cigarette drag at the end of a long day?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I I think for me, the thing that st stands out the most is just the level of harm at which, especially teenage girls are being impacted by this. Because I mean, to the point where you're in the hospital, to the point where you are constantly feeling like you're not good enough, this is the next generation of women. This is this is this is who, you know, are gonna be the mothers of tomorrow, this is who are gonna be the the leaders of tomorrow. And if they're already at 15 feeling like they're not good enough, what happens, you know, if if half of them don't even make it because, you know, for whatever reason, yeah, from social media, it's something that we clearly need to take a longer, harder look at than just like, oh, they'll be all right, because they're not they're not all right. And I think that's the thing that shocks me the most. And I also think that maybe there's a society in which we the older people, we the elders, bully them off of social media by just being there and enjoying it and making it uncool. Like maybe that is the solution I have right now, is like uncool TikTok and they'll get off. And yeah, I mean they'll find something else, but you know, at least it'll work for a little bit.
SPEAKER_00You're right. They're they will find something else, but it's kind of in our hands to guide the younger generation to use it responsibly. Yeah. Um, Sharon, thank you so much. I think I hear Sharon says so on your social media channels. But not your teens. So there. But it's just great information, and then and I really appreciate you having this conversation with us.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Broadlines, a production of a female quotient filmed in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_01If you liked this episode, and I know you did, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe. If you have a question, maybe a work question, or you have an idea for an episode, DM us at female quotient or leave a comment to get the conversation started. Hit that follow button while you're there. See you next week.