“Social media is ‘one of the least influential factors’ in teen depression and anxiety; girls who are already depressed go on to use social media more, not the other way around.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/16/psychologist-candice-odgers-kids-tech-mental-health-social-media-bans
Jul 16, 2026, 5:15 AM@taylorlorenz Correlation does not imply causation...
@taylorlorenz But you cannot add age restrictions/introduce surveillance if you actually try to fix the problems.
@taylorlorenz If they really want to do it, they should do it like the EU does: no outsourcing to sus companies, but instead just holding your ID card on the back of your phone or putting it into a card reader to extract a boolean value if the user is over the required minimum age. This is how the EUDI wallet works BTW, though I had to oversimplify it.
But still, I agree that restricting access to social media is not a good way to fight mental health problems.
@taylorlorenz Plus in the EU there's no general threshold on when the service should start doing ID checks. If you check the Wikipedia page about the DSA, you'll find that only Big Tech platforms, some porn providers and one clothes marketplace pls some American and Chinese marketplaces. Every service is considered individually. This is why, for example, Wikipedia is not considered a Very Large Online Provider unlike in that one island that has left the Union.
@taylorlorenz I can get where restriciting access comes from. Kind of the same idea as restricting access to alcohol for kids i guess? And i'm of a mind that something needs to be done to safeguard the next generation. However, restriciting access on its own wont solve the problem i think. Aside from giving kids the feeling they're being locked out of part of society (again), locking the gate will only invite workarounds. The restrictions should be accompanied by regulations on algorythms.
Jul 16, 2026, 6:25 AM@taylorlorenz This author blames teens’ mental health problems on things like the recession, adult mental health problems, and opioids- all things that would require deep societal changes to address. It is easier to (try to) kick kids off of social media than to change how the world of IRL adults actually works.
@Gorfram @taylorlorenz Yep this is the key to it all. Adults don’t want to confront the fact that they are making a world that sucks for young people.
@taylorlorenz great another expert opinion for sale. We should demand our governments to run a broad clinical trial rather than extracting blurbs from our echo chambers. While I believe the age verification is not the right way to go about it, I, as the parent of a young daughter, am looking for solutions for keeping her safe while letting her experience pre-vetted places like some among us/ minecraft chat rooms, etc. Status quo is not a solution either.
@amt @taylorlorenz regulate the companies not the kids.
@taylorlorenz one of the main reasons that this ban is taking an effect is because these companies failed to protect kids from predators and harmful content. Even if it has nothing to do with depression, what benefit do kids get from these apps other than wasting time scrolling and losing their ability to focus and concentrate on important tasks? Don't say communicating with their friends because the ban doesn't include private messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram.
@taylorlorenz interesting article. It sounds like both angles could be true. Social media might act more as an amplifier of your current emotional state. Im still skeptical though, I would have liked to see the point on negative content catching attention more successfully than positive content addressed for example.