SOCIAL MEDIA IS (NOT) TOBACCO: Affecting kids’ mental health in a similar way nicotine does.

BLOWING THE WHISTLE:

During a discussion in the US Congress, it was frankly acknowledged that for the big social media companies, profit is a higher priority than children's mental health.

A whistleblower of Facebook, Frances Haugen, said that her former employer company is "operating in the shadows". She also accused it of hurting children and harming democracy by promoting social divisions.

She also said that FB impacts its teenage clients’ self-image.

FB’s internal company documents show that FB knows that its products cause harm, including to kids.

There has been a debate on comparing social media with tobacco. What are the arguments?

“The truth is that cigarettes are the single most dangerous consumer product ever sold.”

- former Democratic Congressman, Henry Waxman.

How does he compare tobacco with social media?

There's nothing good about tobacco. It's the only legal product we have that we know that kills and makes people sick and has no redeeming value. Social media has pluses and some big minuses.

"It's an absurd comparison. Social media helps people connect and small businesses thrive."

Then, how is social media similar to tobacco?

1) HOOKING FOR PROFIT:

The more addicted you are to smoking, the more money tobacco companies make. The more time you spend scrolling Facebook or Instagram and thus consuming ads, the more money Facebook makes.

The tobacco companies had years of scientific evidence of the health impacts of their product. In Facebook's case, the company is in the early days of understanding the impacts of its digital tools. And it has already shared some information.

2) HOOKING THE KIDS EARLY:

The Facebook documents published by the Wall Street Journal show that FB has been thinking of more ways to engage children.

Whistleblower Haugen stated:

They have to make sure that the next generation is just as engaged in Instagram as the current one. And the way they'll do that is by making sure that children establish habits before they have good self-regulation. In other words, by hooking kids.

A very similar set of parallel regulations have to be put on the box in order to protect children from Instagram, from social media in the same way that our nation put laws on the box to protect children against Big Tobacco.

- Democratic Senator Ed Markey.

(He has drafted the KIDS (Kids Internet Design and Safety) Act.)

He says:

We have to ban push notifications.

We have to ban auto-play.

We have to make sure that the algorithms can't be set so that it's deliberately playing games with the minds of children in our country up to the age of 16.