The Facebook Files and Instagram Harming Kids - Unplug & Plug In Podcast Episode 2
Teen health is harmed by Instagram, says Facebook's own data. This episode is about what parents can do to help kids on social media.
After the explosive revelations about Facebook/Instagram's harmful algorithms, it's time to talk about teen safety--mentally and physically--online.
This is a solo episode with host Lisa Honold and she covers what parents can do with the information surfacing from Facebook's whistleblower Frances Haugen and the internal reports she shared that show teens are harmed by Instagram.
“October 10th is world mental health day. And I want to do my part in raising awareness of mental health issues by talking about tweens and teens and what has come to light in the Facebook files and the whistleblower and all things around Facebook and Instagram.”
Lisa Honold, host
First, a celebration! Instagram for kids has been postponed.
Instagram for kids under 13 was Facebook solution for designing a safer platform for young people, for kids as young as 8, 9, 10 years old. What we know is that kids don't need another social media platform. Our teenagers need the one that they're already on to be safer to be protective, to have this built into the platform so that they don't get direct messages from predators so that they're not severely cyberbullied without anyone stepping in from the platform.
The Facebook and Instagram Internal Documents Proving They Knew about Harm to Teens
One in five teens say that Instagram makes them feel worse about themselves, according to the Facebook Files. One in five, and it's more significant for teen girls. According to Instagram zone research, body issues become worse for one in three teen girls, 6% of us teens said that their desire to kill themselves actually started on Instagram, and 9% of US Teens said their desire to hurt themselves self harm started on Instagram. They were exposed to these ideas on Instagram. And what's tricky about the algorithm for any social media platform is that once the algorithm sees that you're looking at videos or content related to taking your life or hurting yourself, the algorithm delivers more of that content. That's just how it's built. It's a self-harm loop. It starts to feel normal.
Important links
Learn more about World Mental Health Day (World Health Organization)
Sign the Petition to end "Instagram for Kids" platform by Facebook
Read the article with the Facebook news from the last few weeks
Read the Fairplay summary of the Facebook Files related to teen health and Instagram
Read our article on Resetting Instagram for a healthier experience
Watch the movie The Social Dilemma
Sign up for our masterclass for parents - Teen Health and Social Media (replay available). Learn more here.
Next Steps
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Conversation Starter for your Family
Parents, I don't just want to leave you with the news recap. I want to make sure you can move the conversation forward with your family. This week's conversation starter is about Instagram and how to use it healthier, how to set it up to be helpful.
I want you to print this article out and use it as a basis for this discussion, with your teen.
Some of the things outside of Instagram you can do to declutter your mind are:
you can take a break from social media for an hour or a day
you can start a new habit of checking in with yourself before you pick up your phone, why you're going to pick it up? How do you feel? And when you put it back down, do you feel better or worse? And what were you doing on there? This is an awareness that builds over time.
And when you notice that an app is consistently negative, you'll know to take the next step inside the article.
And inside Instagram, we've listed some ways to audit your account, audit your Instagram account and posts, the people that you call friends on there, or that you're following on there.
There are ways to block people or mute their posts or stories.
You can hide your content from certain accounts that you're following.
There's something called limits that lets you hide direct messages and comments that are coming from strangers or followers that have recently come aboard and hidden words lets you automatically filter abusive words. You can also customize these words for trigger words that, that you need to have set up.
If you’re going to use Instagram, take advantage of the tools and features that Instagram has. There are some new features that your teen might not know about yet that help protect their accounts from trolls and bullies.