Goodbye, Instagram

It's getting morally icky

[An image you DIDN'T see on Instagram last week]

Early last week, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy put out a statement calling for a surgeon general’s health warning label on social media platforms (similar to alcohol and tobacco), especially for adolescents. Here are a few additional actions he called for Congress to take into consideration:

• Shield young people from online harassment, abuse and exposure to extreme violent and sexual content that the algorithm is built to show

• Prevent collecting sensitive data from children

• Restrict use of push notifications, autoplay and infinite scroll which “prey on developing brains and contribute to excessive use”

• Share all known platform data on health effects with independent scientists and the public

• Allow independent safety audits

I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge of public health is limited, but adolescents or otherwise, these seem like things that should exist across social media uniformly. Which I guess others agreed with. Or rather, others found it troubling that we need to use “save the children!” policies to make everyone more healthy.

Additionally, 45 states and D.C. are also in the process of suing Meta for their knowing harm to children:

“The states accuse Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards. Using a coordinated legal approach reminiscent of the government’s pursuit of Big Tobacco in the 1990s, the attorneys general seek to compel Meta to bolster protections for minors.”

I’ve heard a lot more troubling reports about the mental health impacts of social media, but for whatever reason, this was the week I finally logged out of Instagram and deleted the app from my phone.