So you really not see a difference between _lung cancer_ and "my teenager is moody"?
The evidence that Facebook harms people is extremely iffy.
>The evidence that Facebook harms people is extremely iffy.
Funny because internal documents at Facebook said exactly that about teenagers:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/faceboo...
https://fairplayforkids.org/facebook-research-children/
https://theconversation.com/states-sue-meta-for-knowingly-hu...
Facebook's internal documents showed that on 11 of 12 body image issues, Facebook was helpful to more teens than it was harmful to [1]:
> For example, lots of people rely on the reporting around the Frances Haugen leaks from inside Facebook to argue that “Facebook knew” that Instagram causes “body image issues” for children (and then most people leapt to the belief that the company then ignored and downplayed that finding). But, as we noted, the actual study told a very, very different story. As we pointed out at the time, the study was an attempt to do the right thing and understand if social media like Facebook was actually causing negative self-images among teenagers, and the study found that for the most part, the answer was absolutely not.
> It looked at 12 different potential issues, and surveyed teenaged boys and girls, and found that in 23 out of 24 categories, social media had little to no negative impact, and quite frequently a mostly positive impact. The only issue where the “negative impact” outweighed the “positive impact” was on “body image issues” for teenaged girls, and even then it was less than one-third of the teen girls who said that it made it worse for them. And the whole point of the study was to find out what areas were problematic, and which areas could be improved upon. But, again, in every other area, “made it better” far outranked “made it worse.”
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/28/contrary-to-popular-opin...
Do you not see the difference between “my teenager is moody” and “depression”? Using minimizing language here helps no one.
I agree that there should be more formal research into the effects of social media but as a parent I see concern about the effects of social media in conversation with other parents and teachers all the time. It is something we all witness in our own lives to some extent or another.
“We should let this run rampant while we investigate it fully” and “we should block this while we investigate it fully” are both valid viewpoints. And if voters want the latter it only makes sense for the government to be responsive to that.
It's very hard, maybe impossible, to answer the question of whether social media harms people. It's like asking if TV, video games, etc harm people. Maybe -- but I don't trust the studies and at any rate, these are things people should decide for themselves and their families.