Scary social numbers
It’s impossible to say how different my adolescent years might have been if high-speed Internet and wireless connectivity, smartphones and social media had existed back then, but it’s an absolute certainty that the difference would have been significant.
I know that because I see how different my adult life has become with those technologies. And because—statistically, functionally and culturally—they have become wholly world-changing in just a couple of decades.
In 2005, only 2 percent of Americans owned a smartphone. Today, 92 percent do. Smartphone sales began booming with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. That year, more than
122 million smartphones were sold worldwide. Since 2014, the number of units sold annually has never fallen below 1.2 billion.
Providing a constant flow of information and interactivity, smartphones can create addictive behavior and issues. Two-thirds of Americans check their phones nearly 160 times daily, according to recent mobile phone research. A majority of mobile users use their phones “excessively,” another study found, by clicking, touching or swiping their device an average of 2,617 times per day.
The top 10 percent of mobile users click, touch or swipe on their smartphones 5,427 times daily. For context, remember that there are only 1,440 minutes in a day, which presumably includes several hours of sleep time.
We take the man-made miracle in our pocket or purse for granted, but the raw computing power and data access a smartphone offers is truly mind-boggling. For almost everything you can imagine, there is literally “an app for that” these days. And oftentimes, there are apps for things you never even thought about.
The most popular, of course, are social media. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp were the top four apps downloaded last year.
But just like atomic fission—which can produce immense power for life-preserving utilities or immense explosions with mass killing destruction—smartphones and social media can be helpful or harmful.
When used for good, they can be quite beneficial. But when used for bad, they can lead to horrific consequences and outcomes. And because this whole virtual arena is relatively new, there isn’t enough data in place to analyze longterm effects and ramifications on mental, physical and behavioral health.
But what we’re learning is worrisome and getting more so. Unlike the television screens of earlier generations, smartphone screens are two-way windows. They let strangers and stalkers and predators see in. While that’s alarming enough for adults, it’s far more fearsome for kids.
Internal documents produced by Instagram and quoted in legal proceedings in 2020, for example, revealed that 500,000 child Instagram accounts had “inappropriate” interactions every day.
You may think that Instagram doesn’t allow “child accounts,” which is technically true. Children under age 13 cannot have accounts, but there’s a loophole: parents can run accounts for underage children, which has led to a new addition to the online lexicon—“Instamoms.”
The New York Times recently examined thousands of such parent-run accounts, often ostensibly created in order to jump-start a child’s aspiration to become a social media influencer. This is a popular career goal for preteens and Gen-Zers.
However, particularly for girls, the realm of social media is fraught with “profound risk” according to a Surgeon General’s advisory warning issued last May.
The tech giants that own and operate the largest social media platforms aren’t bystanders to the risks to life, limb and psyche young users are facing. They’re enablers.
Through algorithms and other psychologically manipulative protocols, they help control content exposure to entice greater visibility and participation. Prudence and safety routinely take a back seat to profit potential.
The Times investigation found that young girl influencer accounts attract a disproportionate number of male followers: Analysis by an audience demographics firm linked 32 million male connections to the 5,000 accounts The Times monitored. That’s not just a formula for potential abuse, but an open online invitation to predators. The Times also tracked male child-fantasy forums, where participants routinely praised Instagram as a “candy store” for finding and following young girls.
Last fall, 33 states joined in filing suit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, for luring children into risk while deceiving users about safety. The 233-page lawsuit features lots of charges, including accusations that Meta used unprecedented technological techniques to “entice, engage and ultimately ensnare youth and teens” in rabbit holes of toxic and harmful content.
The tech lobby is monied and powerful, backed by enormously profitable companies. It constantly opposes legislative attempts to further protect children online, even as tweens (age 8-12) are using social media more than ever.
Meta’s official line is that parents are responsible for accounts and content, and have the power to delete them anytime. True, but if child safety online is the priority, as it ought to be, why allow parent-run Instagram accounts for them in the first place?
Time and again, from sweatshops to tobacco and now social media, big corporations guided by greed have been more than willing to exploit reckless risks to children for the almighty dollar.
Social media presents existential dangers to vulnerable kids. Protecting them should become a national priority.