My daughter, Becca Schmill, would have turned 23 this year. Becca was a beautiful, caring person whose smile lit up every room. She had hopes and dreams of her own, but before she was able to begin her first year at the University of Richmond, Becca died after she ingested fentanyl-laced drugs at the age of 18.
Fentanyl may have been the official cause of her death, but the path she went down to get there was paved by social media.
Like many young people at the time, Becca got her first smartphone in middle school. Three years before her death, she was added to an online party chat where she was introduced to a group of 18-year-old boys – one of whom later raped her. She was 15. As she attempted to heal from this trauma, the process was undermined by a humiliating cyberbullying incident. The shame and anguish the assault caused – compounded by the cruelty of a few peers on multiple social media platforms – created a hole inside her heart that Becca tried to fill by self-medicating.
Becca had a loving family and the support of counselors, but social media made it possible for her to find illicit drugs whenever she felt the desire to escape from the pain she felt inside.
Social media was not designed with kids’ best interests in mind
My daughter’s story is singular, but her experience with social media is one that millions of kids face daily. What’s frightening is that when a child experiences online harm, it is often because social media is working exactly as designed. Platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook use powerful algorithms designed to maximize time spent on their apps. They reward despair and outrage and target the most vulnerable among us.
For kids and teenagers who are at pivotal stages of their mental development, social media hijacks their brains. If young people fall into harm online, there is little that parents can do to intervene. The apps can turn happy lives into nightmares.
When I tried bringing my concerns to the social media platforms, I quickly learned they were not interested in making their products safe for kids. Their primary interest was, and is, to increase engagement so they increase their profits.
Social media platforms, as designed, are not safe for kids. According to research by Jonathan Haidt, renowned social psychologist and New York Times best-selling author, social media is primarily to blame for an epidemic of mental illness among America’s youth.
Depression and anxiety for young people are rising: 1 in 3 teenage girls have reported seriously considering suicide in the past year.
In addition to the mental health concerns, rates of sextortion and drug sales online are skyrocketing. The U.S. surgeon general has rightfully called for warning labels to be put on social media apps, but a lot more needs to be done.
Why aren’t tech companies doing more to protect children on their own?
Big Tech companies choose to put profits first, despite their own internal research showing that their design features are causing harm to children. This is why legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act — which requires tech companies to prioritize kids’ safety in design decisions and enable the strongest safety settings by default — is so important. The bill is a crucial first step.
Beyond legislation, what’s needed is a different kind of digital world where social media and the internet exist to empower and not harm us. What’s needed is a new way forward that creates a better digital experience for everyone — especially kids.
Today, more than 170 million Americans use TikTok, and a significant percentage of TikTok users are under the age of 15.
