Instagram Is Finally Doing Right by Teens

These changes, many would argue, are long overdue. For years, people have worried about the effects that unfettered and unsupervised social-media use may have on young people—that these platforms may contribute to depression, anxiety, severe body-image issues, and even suicide risk. Meta has been under the microscope particularly since the former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen leaked a trove of internal documents in 2021, some of which had to do with the experiences of teens on Instagram and Facebook. Subsequently, Meta and other social-media companies were hit by a wave of lawsuits related to alleged damage that the platforms have done to adolescents; politicians on both the right and the left suggested it might be a good idea to require parental consent for children to use algorithmic feeds, or to prohibit social-media use for younger teenagers altogether. “Facebook is not interested in making significant changes to improve kids’ safety on their platforms,” Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator from Tennessee, said during one of Haugen’s congressional appearances. “At least, nothing that would result in losing eyeballs on posts or decreasing their ad revenue.”