Doomscrolling. In French, the OQLF suggests “morbid scrolling”. The expression is not bad and would undoubtedly obtain the endorsement of the director of public health of the United States, who is worried more than ever about the impact of platforms like Instagram and TikTok on the mental and physical health of young Americans.
US Public Health Chief Medical Officer Vivek Murthy released a 19-page report last week that should have sounded like a ton of bricks. It’s starting to take on the appearance of the scourge of the decade: the obsession provoked in the youngest audience by social networks unconcerned about their harmful impact on these same users. By dint of excessively scrolling the publications disseminated on social networks, children and adolescents develop increasingly serious mental and physical health problems.
Several studies have made the link in the past between the appearance in their lives of social networks and the increase in children under 18 of problems of anxiety, depression and even suicide attempts. This, in addition to cyberbullying and the promotion of unhealthy or exaggerated habits.
The US Chief Medical Officer adds this: Right now in the US, 95% of 13-17 year olds say they have a social media presence. 40% of young people aged 8 to 12 also do so, even if the age generally required to access these applications is set at 13 years old.
For the head of the US Department of Health, the conclusion is simple: this is a public health problem that everyone must tackle. Parents, businesses, governments.
Because morbid scrolling is becoming, strictly speaking, morbid.
Parents, wake up!
The problem is both simple and serious. It is simple, because what should be done is not very complicated: reduce the impact on both the brain and the physical health of young people of these platforms which act as all-you-can-eat buffets of content that is not always fresh .
The first piece of advice given by the American Public Health Service is for parents: sit at the table with your children during mealtimes and keep any screen away from the table, whatever it may be. Do you speak. Look at you. Have fun.
It’s simple, but it’s so serious. After all, one of the highest health authorities in the United States has come to remind parents to play their role… as parents. At least an hour a day. Perhaps they too are busy viewing their own digital communications on their own mobile device?
“We don’t have enough evidence that social media is safe for children and teens,” Dr.r Murthy. “Research is increasingly pointing to potential risks. We need to better understand these risks associated with social media, and act quickly to create safer and healthier environments that reduce the mental health impacts of young people at a crucial stage in their development. »
Tech in the crosshairs
The head doctor is very strict, it shows from the first lines of his report. That said, he qualifies his point a little: there are cases where the use of social networks can be beneficial. We saw it during the confinement of the pandemic: it allowed many people to keep in touch and social ties despite the restrictions.
Still, it’s for the executives of the tech companies behind the social networks and the devices they’re on: get more serious about how you control access to your platforms. It doesn’t take 13 years or a degree in computer programming to figure out how to outsmart a drop-down menu that stupidly asks you to enter your date of birth…
It hardly takes a few extra efforts to circumvent geo-restrictions using a VPN service.
But here it is: the business model on which the technology giants are based understands this need to publish ever-increasing figures for the use of their products and services every three months. Three billion people visiting Facebook every month is not enough. TikTok, which has doubled its user base in Canada in a few months, is creating a ripple effect encouraged by marketing experts and cultural industries across the country.
Follow me on Instagram! No big deal if it drives you crazy, I want my million subscribers and the role of spokesperson for an automobile brand that comes with it…
Miniature adults
There’s something Dr. Vivek Murthy writes in his report that resonates far beyond the tech sector: young people, he says, are not “miniature adults.” Their brains are in accelerated training. They are in the process of developing the tools with which they will then enter at full speed into the rest of society: work, consumption, etc.
This is a contradictory statement. After all, new laws had to be passed in Quebec and elsewhere to remind employers that young people aged 13 or 14 are not necessarily ready for the job market.
US Public Health finds that 13- and 14-year-olds may not be ready for social media either. Morbid or not.