Biden will tackle the nation’s “mental health crisis” in his state of the Union by blaming COVID for the backlog of children at school and social media for their tricks to “make children click – with huge consequences”
- Biden will address social media companies in his address on the state of the Union
- He will criticize them for their role in children’s mental health problems
- “There is growing evidence that social media is playing a systemic role in deteriorating the mental health of countless young people,” said a senior administration official.
- Officials would not say whether the president will push for sanctions on huge companies such as Tiktok, Twitter and Facebook.
President Joe Biden will address social media companies in its address on the state of the Union on Tuesday night to hold them accountable for their role in children’s mental health.
Biden will “call for action to address social media as harmful to mental health, especially for young people,” a senior administration official told a news briefing Tuesday morning.
“Evidence is growing that social media is playing a systemic role in deteriorating the mental health of countless young people,” the official said.
But officials would not say whether the president would push for sanctions on huge companies such as Ticket, Twitter and Facebook.
“The president believes that technology companies should be held accountable for the damage they cause,” the official said, but did not elaborate.
Officials also noted that studies show that children lag behind in math and reading due to school interruptions during the Covid pandemic, which affects their mental health.
President Joe Biden will address social media in his address on the state of the union on Tuesday night to hold them accountable for their role in children’s mental health.
Officials would not say whether the president will push for sanctions on huge companies such as Tiktok, Twitter and Facebook.
An increasing percentage of young people in the United States are living with major depression, according to the non-profit organization Mental Health America: 15.08% of young people have experienced a major depressive episode in the last year, an increase of 1.24% over the previous year.
And more than 2.5 million young people in the United States are severely depressed, and multiracial youth are at greatest risk.
In his address on the state of the Union, Biden will call on Congress to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising for children and call on technology companies to stop collecting personal data on children.
Biden will also criticize social media platforms for their addictive nature.
“This crisis in the mental health of young people has been highlighted by major social media platforms that have been conducting a national experiment on our children for years and using their data to make them click – with huge consequences,” the White House said in a statement. .
Officials cite an estimate that social media companies can provide advertising companies with 72 million different data points for an average 13-year-old user.
In his address on the state of the Union, President Biden will criticize social media companies for their role in mental health problems among children.
Biden will also outline a larger mental health strategy that includes $ 700 million in investment in training and support programs for clinicians. The administration also plans to launch a crisis hotline in July.
Advertising