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‘It’s Causing Them to Drop Out of Life’: How Phones Warped Gen Z
It’s hard to believe sometimes that smartphones and social media haven’t been around forever — but for one generation, they have. Gen Z doesn’t know a time when they weren’t ubiquitous. This cohort also happens to be the generation with the worst mental health in America. Is that a coincidence?
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has reams of data to argue it’s not. And in his new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, he is launching a shot at what he hopes will become a full-scale war against social media and smartphone use by kids and teens.
Through his research, which he also highlights on his Substack, “After Babel,” Haidt found that teen mental health has dramatically worsened after iPhone usage became widespread and Instagram was created. While he blames Instagram for causing the most initial damage of the new era — particularly in fueling declining mental health for girls — he now sees a new, graver threat. “TikTok is arguably the worst consumer product ever invented,” says Haidt, who’s a strong supporter of legislation targeting TikTok in Congress.
Without action — from parents, lawmakers, schools and tech companies — the youth mental health crisis will continue unabated, he warns. And there could be some unexpected political fallout. As Haidt puts it, with a growing sense of anxiety and dislocation, people may become more open to an authoritarian leader who promises to stop the chaos.
How COVID Lockdowns Hit Mental Health of Teenage Boys Hardest
Teenage boys were hit hardest by the COVID lockdowns, with their mental health failing to recover despite the return to normality, according to the most comprehensive academic study of its kind. Early research into how lockdowns affected children indicated that girls had suffered more significant mental health problems than boys.
However, a new study carried out by academics from three U.K. universities, published in the journal European Child + Adolescent Psychiatry, found that over the long term, teenage boys’ mental health was more adversely affected.
The academics found that while both sexes had an immediate decline in their mental health, boys then did not experience the natural improvement in mental well-being that usually comes with maturation as they move through the teenage years.
For those who were moving between primary and secondary school during the pandemic years, lockdowns also disrupted integration into new social groups and the chance to form friendships. For older teenagers, universities and colleges switched to virtual lectures and seminars, leaving new students unable to form bonds with others.
X Pledges $300K to Pay Legal Fees for Canadian Doctor Who Bucked COVID Vaccination Mandates
A Canadian doctor with a fast-approaching deadline to pay a $300,000 court judgment in a legal battle over lockdowns and vaccine mandates, received some help from the social media platform X, which offered to cover the cost.
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill is a physician in Ontario, Canada who specializes in pediatrics and immunology. In the summer of 2020, she spoke out against the harms of lockdowns and vaccination mandates during the pandemic, using social media.
As a result, Gill became the target of a smear campaign, according to a crowdfunding page seeking assistance for the doctor, and the public was encouraged to file complaints about her.
Gill attempted to clear her name through legal proceedings against the people responsible for the campaign, but she lost and was ordered to pay $1.2 million in October 2022. She appealed the decision and was ordered to pay about $300,000 late last month, which is due tomorrow.
On Sunday, X announced it was stepping up to help Gill. “X is proud to help defend Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against the government-supported efforts to cancel her speech,” the social media platform wrote. The post continued to explain Gill’s situation, saying she spoke out publicly on Twitter (now X) in opposition to her government’s lockdown efforts and vaccination mandates.
U.S. House Funding Bill Passes After Anti-Censorship, Anti-CBDC Measures Are Removed
A $1.2 trillion spending bill just rushed through the House of Representatives in the U.S. has enabled the allocation of funding to what would have been prohibited recipients/policies. This includes earmarking money in support of censorship efforts, a U.S. CBDC (central bank digital currency), and vaccine mandates, among other things.
In a series of posts on X, Representative Andrew Clyde singled out examples from the 1,000+ page document, which was published early on Thursday giving members of the House less than 24 hours to decide on how to vote.
Clyde was one of the Republicans who held no punches in slamming the bill as a result of backroom deals, saying that what he referred to as “the Swamp” (i.e., Washington) is about to bankroll some “catastrophic policies” with huge amounts of money.
And last but not least, according to the congressman, the spending bill “surrendered a provision that would have prohibited the Treasury Department from establishing a U.S. CBDC or discontinuing paper currency.”
2024 May Be the Year Online Disinformation Finally Gets the Better of Us
2024 isn’t any old year for politics. It may well be the year for politics. And when the dust eventually settles after what will no doubt be a tumultuous year, we will look back and ask the question: How on earth did we get here? Yes, 2024 may be the year for politics, but in this newborn age of generative AI, it may also be the year online disinformation finally gets the better of us.
Whichever way the political winds blow this year, make no mistake — the outcomes of these elections will have a deep impact on the trajectory of not just each nation’s future but on the world’s.
And at this time when politics has never felt more precarious, the same can be said for technology. Never before have AI-powered tools been more sophisticated, widespread and accessible to the public.
Generative AI, in its broadest sense, refers to deep learning models that can generate sophisticated text, video, audio, images and other content based on the data they were trained on. And the recent introduction of these tools into the mainstream — including language models and image creators — has made the creation of fake or misleading content incredibly easy, even for those with the most basic tech skills.
Louisiana Debates Civil Liability Over COVID Vaccine Mandates, or the Lack Thereof
Three years after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in the United States, Louisiana continues to debate policies related to inoculation mandates, including civil liabilities if a workplace mandates vaccines or not and a bill that would prohibit schools from requiring students to receive the vaccine.
The ongoing debates, which are often marred by anti-vaccination rhetoric, come on the cusp of relaxed guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and COVID-19 no longer being the public health menace it once was. This legislative session, Louisiana lawmakers’ conversations on COVID-19 vaccines have broadened to also apply to “experimental or emergency use vaccinations” for fear of future pandemics.
Louisiana’s GOP-controlled House passed a bill Wednesday that protects businesses from being sued because they don’t mandate “experimental or emergency use vaccines” including COVID-19 shots.
Lawmakers Discuss Bill to Outlaw COVID Vaccine Mandates
Over the past three years, millions of Kentuckians have received COVID-19 vaccinations. In some cases, it was to fulfill a requirement to attend school or work.
However, there is now a push to make those mandates a thing of the past.
“It is just unnecessary right now and the data is starting to show, very clearly, there’s no reason to require this vaccine,” said Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield.
Sen. Tichenor says COVID-19 vaccination mandates led to some making a difficult decision that she said was unjust.
Ron DeSantis Signs Bill Requiring Parental Consent for Kids Under 16 to Hold Social Media Accounts
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) just signed into law HB 3, a bill that will give parents of teens under 16 more control over their kids’ access to social media and require age verification for many websites.
The bill requires social media platforms to prevent kids under 14 from creating accounts and delete existing ones. It also requires parent or guardian consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create or maintain social media accounts and mandates that platforms delete social media accounts and personal information for this age group at the teen’s or parent’s request.
Companies that fail to promptly delete accounts belonging to 14- and 15-year-olds can be sued on behalf of those kids and may owe them up to $10,000 in damages each. A “knowing or reckless” violation could also be considered an unfair or deceptive trade practice, subject to up to $50,000 in civil penalties per violation.
The bill also requires many commercial apps and websites to verify their users’ ages — something that introduces a host of privacy concerns. But it does require websites to give users the option of “anonymous age verification,” which is defined as verification by a third party that cannot retain identifying information after the task is complete. The requirement kicks in when a commercial site contains a “substantial portion of material harmful to minors,” defined as more than a third of content on the site, which would clearly target porn sites in particular. Such sites must ensure users are 18 or older — though news sites are exempt from the requirement. Violations are also subject to an up to $50,000 civil penalty each.
Who Pays When AI Steers Your Doctor Wrong?
Doctors using new artificial intelligence tools to help them diagnose and treat their patients say they wish Congress would provide some clarity on a big unanswered question: Who pays if AI makes a mistake?
Advancements in AI promise to improve care, but only if doctors trust the systems and are protected from liability, according to the country’s leading physicians’ group, the American Medical Association.
At stake is more than just millions in medical malpractice payouts, over a dozen health, legal and tech leaders told POLITICO. Judges, lawmakers and regulators are shaping what a medical system infused with artificial intelligence owes patients, both in terms of quality care and the right to recompense if something goes wrong.
It won’t happen without a fight. Health tech companies and some hospitals say that doctors making the final call in care are ultimately responsible for their decisions.
Apple, Google and Meta Are Failing DMA Compliance, EU Suspects
Not even three weeks after the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the European Commission (EC) announced Monday that it is already probing three out of six gatekeepers — Apple, Google and Meta — for suspected non-compliance.
Apple will need to prove that changes to its app store and existing user options to swap out default settings easily are sufficient to comply with the DMA.
Similarly, Google’s app store rules will be probed, as well as any potentially shady practices unfairly preferencing its own services — like Google Shopping and Hotels — in search results.
Finally, Meta’s “Subscription for No Ads” option — allowing Facebook and Instagram users to opt out of personalized ad targeting for a monthly fee—may not fly under the DMA. Even if Meta follows through on its recent offer to slash these fees by nearly 50%, the model could be deemed non-compliant.
In total, the EC announced five investigations: two against Apple, two against Google and one against Meta.
