Policy Institute advocates for online youth harm reduction
In my role as Director of Policy and Advocacy at Mental Health America, I have ongoing opportunities to lead annual policy meetings on the prevention and early intervention of mental health conditions, some of which I have dealt with firsthand since high school. Since the COVID-19 public health emergency, we have spent much time advocating that the public health response include addressing mental health issues, which are routinely excluded despite data showing that schizophrenia was the number one co-occurring condition in people who died of COVID-19, higher than asthma, obesity and cardiovascular conditions.
in our 2023 National Institute of Politics (performed just before the start of our annual conference in early June), we returned to youth-focused discussions. Signs of mental health condition manifest at age 14 in 50% of people who end up developing them, however, on average, it takes 12 years before people connect to services. With Generation Z in the midst of a pandemic, ongoing violence, and digital connectivity, this year was all about tweens, teens, and technology. We discuss the impact of the Internet and technology on youth mental health and substance use based on research conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse director, Dr. Nora Volkow, and several psychologists who conduct annual studies on youth and the media, including Dr. Yalda Teheranian-Uhls of scholars and storytellers and Monica Anderson from the Pew Research Center.
We highlight which tech policies currently before Congress will help address the damage. While 1 in 3 internet users are under the age of 18, California is the only state to have enacted an Age Appropriate Design Code Act (similar to the UK law for 5Rights Foundation) to ensure young people are not exploited or attacked online. No action has been taken in the US Congress to hold tech companies accountable for harm done on social media, despite young people reporting spending more than eight hours a day online social. In fact, much of the more than $70 billion in revenue generated by Meta in 2020 can be attributed to youth ads. The Senate Commerce Committee has previously assumed the Children’s Online Safety Actthe closest bill we have to a national framework along with the Children’s and Adolescents’ Online Privacy Protection Act, but it hasn’t yet made it through Congress 118.
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission renewed and extended his order to provide for the “General Ban Preventing Facebook from Monetizing Youth Data.” And last year, Congress funded a Center of Excellence for the Use of Social Networks by Adolescents. We are very appreciative of her Co-Director, Dr. Megan Moreno, joining the Policy Institute as a speaker along with Haley Hinkle, Fairplay Policy Advisor, and Alison Rice, Campaign Director for Youth Initiatives at responsible technology. MHA was also honored to highlight the work of Amelia Vance, Senior Advisor to the Association of School Superintendents, Fred Dillion, Head of Counseling Services at Hopelab, Dr. Erlanger Turner of Pepperdine University, and Mitch Prinstein, Chief Scientific Officer of the American Psychological Association.
We applaud the decades of work by these researchers and advocates for children’s online safety and privacy, and call on Congress to heed the US Surgeon General’s recommendations. Social networks and youth mental health and enact a national standard to ensure that online media protect youth from harm and encourage healthy exploration of issues and help-seeking behavior. Read the many reports from these leaders at the policy institute meeting agenda and watch the program here.
Sign a letter to Congress in support of the Safer Children’s Online Act
