on a 10° morning in charville 18-year-old Jordi is serving coffee to a sleepy Town there's all your charville is its own world but in jordy's Pocket there's another it's like a second world really like you have reality and then you have social media like two extremely different things I'm on it 5 and 1/2 hours a day so it's a lot less than what it used to be for me it was going in high school jordy's daily screen time peaked at seven or 8 hours mostly on Tik Tok and Snapchat and there's a reason she cut
back things like growing up um I've always been a bigger girl just seeing stuff on social media and thinking oh like am I not good enough do I have to look like that there was also Around the Clock bullying a group of boys at my school had tagged me in a Tik Tok telling me to go kill myself so yeah that for me it was just so heartbreaking and still putting down the phone felt impossible it was like that fear of missing out I guess you have to be on social media to know everything what
does social media do to your mental health honestly it's kind of depressing because you're just like consuming like I think because I know I'm consuming just Mindless this content is distracting mesmerizing just scrolling scrolling and look at the time and realiz it's been 5 hours I got rid of Snapchat Instagram everything Tik Tok I think it makes me feel happy cuz I can socialize with my friends and watch funny videos it'll make you insecure it'll make you want more always wanting more not always better it can ruin you Teen Mental Health has deteriorated in the
last two decades there's a lot of questions that parents have about this Dr Alisa wner Sidler is researching how Tech affects young people's mental health what we know about the link is there's a link and that's pretty much what we know in other words more screen time might be causing worse mental health or it might be the other way around thousands of researchers around the world are trying to find the answer by focusing on how teenagers spend their time online because Doom scrolling perfect bodies on Tik Tok might not be the same as connecting with
friends via a game or chat it matters what people do and how they do it and how long for and with whom of course there is already a wealth of data on the subject it's just not in the hands of researchers the big tech companies have all of this information if they were to share it with academics and scientists we would be able to learn so much more so much more quickly all the major platforms have safety policies in place designed to protect young people parental controls Avenues to report inappropriate content and seek help customizable
settings and age limits even if they're rarely enforced it's their way of trying to undo the perception that social media companies routinely put profit ahead of safety these companies are Infamous for ignoring their own internal research on risks reset Tech is an internet research group that wants to see tougher rules for social media companies especially when it comes to the dangers of the technology itself a key law the Online safety act is currently up for review I've never seen the appetite as strong as it is right now for government to legislate in this domain Jordy
is all four stronger rules more so now than when her mom forced her to cut back her screen time last year I'm thankful every day that my mom did what she did if you had a big switch and you could switch off social media not just for yourself but for everyone would you do it I think I would because there is so much more to this world even if it was for a week just so people could have that taste of what it would be like without social media [Music]
