NPR reports:

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ biggest fear as a parent isn’t gun violence, or drunk driving, or anything related to the pandemic.

It’s social media.

And specifically, the new sense of “brokenness” she hears about in children in her district, and nationwide. Teen depression and suicide rates have been rising for over a decade, and she sees social apps as a major reason.

At a hearing this March on Capitol Hill, the Republican congresswoman from Washington confronted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai with a list of statistics: From 2011 to 2018, rates of teen depression increased by more than 60%, and from 2009 to 2015, emergency room admissions for self-harm among 10- to 14-year-old girls tripled.

“It’s a battle for their development. It’s a battle for their mental health — and ultimately a battle for their safety,” McMorris Rodgers told the tech leaders.

But when she pointed a question specifically to Zuckerberg, about whether he acknowledged a connection between children’s declining mental health and social media platforms, he demurred.

“I don’t think that the research is conclusive on that,” replied Zuckerberg.

It’s a position that he and his company, which is working on expanding its offerings to even younger children, have held for years. But mental health researchers whom NPR spoke with disagree. [Continue reading…]