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--:-- Georgia Howe: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's June 11th, and this is your Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for joining us, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Today, we're talking about the growing concern over social media's impact on the mental health of adolescents, especially girls. Our culture reporter Megan Basham has been looking into this issue. Megan, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So, social media has been a ubiquitous part of our lives for nearly 20 years now, which is hard to believe. Twitter and Facebook both became available to the public in 2006 and gained wide popularity very quickly. Instagram soon followed. That was in 2010. And there's been plenty of discussion during that time about how this probably isn't good for kids' development. So why are we just now seeing serious proposals to regulate social media?
--:-- Megan Basham: I think for one thing, it can take some time to study the impact of these really seismic technological changes and then isolate how they're impacting different demographics. But now we are starting to see a growing consensus of research showing that this really is an issue.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And that's a big problem because up to 95 percent of kids between ages 13 and 17 say they use at least one social media platform. Nearly 40% of kids 8 to 12 do. Many of them, in fact, use it daily. So this led U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to issue a pretty unusual public warning a couple of weeks ago about the profound risk these apps pose to the mental health of kids. And he urged tech companies to enforce minimum age limits.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, this came right after the American Psychological Association issued its first ever guidance on kids and social media that was similarly dire. I spoke to University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox about the kind of studies that are sparking these warnings.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He said that the research shows a sharp change in teen mental health right when social media became common for girls right when Instagram became common. And they've also been able to trace how introducing increased internet access to various geographical areas impacts the local teen population.
--:-- Megan Basham: We've seen a kind of a tremendous increase in adolescent problems since 2010. So dramatic increases in anxiety and depression, suicide. One of the most striking things for me in looking at the sort of research more recently is seeing that the rate of teenage girls being admitted to emergency rooms for self-harm doubled since 2010.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Of course, there's certainly some scientists saying that correlation does not equal causation here. But we've seen kind of also more recent evidence too that suggests that when there's broadband internet rolling out in different countries and communities, that that's in turn then likely to emotional problems, particularly for younger women.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, I have my own theories about this, but why do researchers think these platforms seem to have a greater impact on girls than boys? Well, a lot of it seems to be that the psychological development of girls is different than boys. And the way girls develop seems to make them uniquely vulnerable to the addictive nature of social media.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Dr. Jean Twenge is a San Diego State psychologist and she's been studying generational differences. In fact, she has a new book out on that titled Generations. And she was one of the first researchers who really started to raise the alarm about the issue starting back in 2017.
--:-- Megan Basham: She says the latest research now shows that 22% of 10th grade girls spend seven or more hours a day on social media, and that directly correlates to poor mental health. So we know that the more hours a day a teen spends on social media, the more likely it is that he or she will be depressed. And we also have more experimental data now showing that social media use can cause depression. Those links between social media use and depression are stronger for girls than they are for boys.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And that's probably due to a number of reasons. One is just that girls face more pressure around their appearance and body image, and that's heightened by social media. And also just cyberbullying tends to affect girls more just because social life and verbal communication tends to be more important.
--:-- Megan Basham: I can tell you that a lot of the mental health statistics have also gotten worse for boys. Teen depression is also way up for boys as well. And, you know, their lives have changed too. They also, you know, spend more time online and less time with each other face to face.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Just they don't face quite as many pressures around body image and appearance on social media as girls do. Now, when I asked several moms of teens, they told me that their experience absolutely dovetails with this data. Marjorie Salvatera is the mother of a teenage daughter who is an elite ballerina.
--:-- Megan Basham: And due to the competitiveness within that ballet world to maintain a certain body type, she developed an eating disorder. Well, Marjorie says the treatment center where her daughter sought help was treating a number of girls who had developed negative body images from social media use.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I met a lot of parents in the hospital and in treatment, like even this past time when she was in the hospital, I would talk to other parents because you can't sit in the room when they eat. And nine-year-olds, the nurse said to me, we've had so many nine-year-olds in here lately.
--:-- Megan Basham: And a few of the moms said TikTok, that their kids got it from TikTok because it tells them what to eat, how to look, how to behave. And it gives them this ideal. And then you have these celebrities going on and saying, this is what I eat for breakfast. And this is what I eat for lunch. And I don't eat dinner.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And it's just, they're killing this group of kids. I also blame politics on both sides of these extremists. It gets into the high schools. When my son was in high school here, there was such a huge divide in his class about politics and mask wearing and the pandemic.
--:-- Megan Basham: And it became so political. Now, what Marjorie said there, that perhaps the problem isn't necessarily social media, but our especially polarized political culture in the U.S., has actually been suggested by some pundits.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Others have pointed to anxiety over school shootings. But Dr. Twenge says the fact that research shows that teens in other countries are experiencing these same issues undercuts those arguments.
--:-- Megan Basham: One thing I always want to point out is that those statistics on depression and self-harm going up among teens, well, two things. First, that they show up for behaviors, not just reports of symptoms. So we can't write them off as just being, you know, about being more willing to report because emergency room admissions for self-harm have quadrupled among 10 to 14-year-old girls.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And that's something we're objectively measuring. And also that those stats replicate internationally.
--:-- Megan Basham: So one of the things that Twangy mentioned there, loneliness, was something a number of moms that I spoke to also brought up. Even as their kids are seemingly forming large online social networks, they report feeling disconnected.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, one of these moms, Melissa Harding, doesn't just have three teenagers. She's also a high school teacher at a private Christian school that tends to have pretty involved parents.
--:-- Megan Basham: And yet she said this is also absolutely a problem that she noticed in her students. I noticed that all of teenage girls that I teach will tell me that they just can't find good friends that they can find good friends.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Or I have moms telling me like, yeah, we might be changing schools like my daughter. She just can't connect with anybody. Everybody's saying this. And you look at these girls and you're like, but you have friends. I see you. You guys hang out on the weekends. You're doing stuff with each other. I've been on a retreat with you. Like you talk about deep things.
--:-- Megan Basham: But there's something I'm convinced about social media that has created a disconnection in their minds. And they don't know what a real connection feels like. Twangy told me that the research does back this up.
--:-- Georgia Howe: She says that between 1976 and 2004, the amount of time that teens spent with their friends pretty much held steady. And then between 2004 and 2010, it started to decrease. Since 2012, it has basically just fallen off a cliff.
--:-- Megan Basham: So you hear this and you really start to feel for these kids. And it makes sense that lawmakers want to do something about it. All right, so let's talk about that. I know Utah has already enacted a new law restricting kids' access to social media.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I know there's a bill to do something similar at a federal level, but I think the obvious question people are going to have is how would laws like that actually be enforced?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, so the Utah law, which was passed back in March, could prove to be something of a model that we see other states follow. The first thing it does is require social media users to verify their age. If they're under 18, they have to have a parent's consent.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And even with the parent's consent, they can't use those apps between 10.30 p.m. and 6.30 a.m.
--:-- Megan Basham: Professor Wilcox actually had a hand in crafting that legislation. And he says the technology has developed in such a way that he believes enforcing the restrictions is very feasible.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We do have pretty good third-party platforms that are designed to do everything from like, you know, get you, I mean, you can get a car loan, right? I mean, I could jump on the internet right now and get a car loan within probably five minutes approved or a major personal loan of some sort approved.
--:-- Megan Basham: And obviously, they're not going to give some random person on the Internet alone unless they can really determine that person is who he or she says they are. So there are these third-party platforms that Utah is going to be looking at as kind of vehicles.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So that's one, I think, potential avenue. There's also potentially the state's kind of DMV or the equivalent could also kind of use people's licensees or lack thereof to help determine kind of who is in the middle.
--:-- Megan Basham: But the point I'm making is it's not hard for these more sophisticated companies now on the internet to figure out people's identity and their age.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And then once they determine you're an adult, you're free to kind of use the apps as you deem fit. And if they figure out that you're a kid, then you need to get your parents' permission to use these social media apps.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, he said he recognizes that some kids are going to find workarounds, but that's been the case with other age restrictions as well. There's always kids who figure out how to get their hands on alcohol, for example.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But his argument is that this law will put up a barrier that significantly decreases teen use. And then the other thing this law does is it bans the social media companies from using addictive algorithms with minor users.
--:-- Megan Basham: And the law makes it easier for parents to sue the big tech companies from harming their children. Other states like Arkansas, Texas, Ohio, Louisiana, they're all looking at passing similar laws.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the bipartisan bill that's just been introduced in the Senate is also very similar. It would bar kids under age 13 from accessing social media, and parents have to give consent for kids between ages 13 and 17.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, I imagine, though, that a lot of people would say this is a parent's job. It's not necessarily the government's job to step in.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, that is absolutely an argument that I heard from a lot of people. Gabe Wrench is co-host of CrossPolitic, and that's a popular podcast that covers the intersection of faith and politics.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, he's a conservative Christian and doesn't advocate letting kids use social media, but he also doesn't believe government regulations are the right answer to the problem.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right now the government can tell you how far apart your drywall screws have to be in your house how far apart your studs have to be in your house I mean we can go down a list of all the ways the government micromanages your situation and it always comes back to at some level in the name of your safety and your health.
--:-- Megan Basham: And the government's job is not to manage our health. So I think that the government can actually encourage good in this situation by telling the parents, this is actually not our job to regulate age limits on social media. It's your job to regulate your own children's age limit on social media.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, I'll say here that it did surprise me a little bit that the moms I spoke to were all a little hesitant of the idea of instituting new laws to address the issue as well, even though they all agreed that it is a problem.
--:-- Megan Basham: Harding offered a pretty representative comment on that. If the government starts controlling that aspect of our phones, what else will it start controlling? What is it that we're handing over when it's, like I said before, it's very easy for parents to just simply do it themselves.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But Wilcox says that his research has shown that not putting age restrictions in place will mean penalizing kids who are further down the socioeconomic ladder. Their parents tend to provide less oversight than wealthier parents.
--:-- Megan Basham: So right now, they are less likely to have someone in their life guarding them from harmful material. What we also see in our research is that kids who are lower down the social ladder, working class and poor kids, have the least parental oversight.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And so for thinking about trying to protect them from the most egregious excesses of social media and big tech, we have to think about ways that the government, in pursuit of the common good, can step in and protect them.
--:-- Megan Basham: And the analogy that I make obviously is just the tobacco. I mean, we have set up pretty stringent laws and regulations around teenagers and tobacco because tobacco has a pretty good negative effect on health, physical health for our kids and our teens.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I think when it comes to the emotional health of our teenagers, it's much the same story. And I'll note that Dr. Twenge shares Dr. Wilcox's view.
--:-- Megan Basham: In fact, she said she'd like to see the laws go a little bit further. I think it would be amazing and fantastic if the minimum age for social media was raised to 16.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But that has to be enforced through actual age verification for it to work. But tech industry lobbyists say she's unlikely to get her way.
--:-- Megan Basham: They say these laws are unconstitutional because they infringe on people's First Amendment right to free speech.
--:-- Georgia Howe: One of the lobby groups, NetChoice, represents Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And they put out a statement that also called Utah's laws an invasion of privacy.
--:-- Megan Basham: They say that requiring users to provide things like government-issued IDs and birth certificates to use these apps puts the users, quote, private data at risk of breach.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And then another group, Tech Freedom, has said that these laws could put LGBTQ kids who live in unsupportive homes at risk because they find support in online communities.
--:-- Megan Basham: The group also put out a letter warning that the Supreme Court has struck down less sweeping laws, so they don't expect these to survive judicial review.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And a lot of legal scholars are saying that review is imminent.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, just to clarify, Tech Freedom thinks that LGBTQ kids will be in harm's way because they won't be able to access age-restricted content.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What kind of online communities would be restricted with these laws?
--:-- Megan Basham: I don't think it's that online communities would be restricted, and they haven't been very clear about what they meant by that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But another advocacy group put out a statement that said, and I'll just quote from it, by requiring parental consent before a teen can use a social media platform, vulnerable minors, including LGBTQ plus kids and kids who live in unsupportive households, may be cut off from access to needed resources and community.
--:-- Megan Basham: So it sounds like they believe that oversight may make it more difficult for kids to access content and communities privately, stuff they don't necessarily want their parents to know that they're engaging with.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right. Although it does seem like that's kind of the point.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
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--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for listening to this episode of Morning Wire. If you want to hear more episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on social media. And don't forget to check out our website for more news and analysis.
