A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
A COALITION OF 97 child health advocates sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday asking him to discontinue Messenger Kids, a new advertising-free Facebook app targeted at 6-to-12-year olds. Advocates say the app likely will undermine healthy childhood development for preschool and elementary-school-aged kids by increasing the amount of time they spend with digital devices. The letter to [...]
Facebook has introduced sweeping changes to the kinds of posts, videos and photos that its more than two billion members will see most often, saying on Thursday that it would prioritize what their friends and family share and comment on while de-emphasizing content from publishers and brands. The shift is the most significant overhaul in [...]
A former Facebook executive is making waves after he spoke out about his "tremendous guilt" over growing the social network, which he feels has eroded "the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other." Chamath Palihapitiya began working for Facebook in 2007 and left in 2011 as its vice president for user [...]
Kate Winslet has zero time for Instagram. In an interview with UK Vogue, the Oscar-winning actor offered her thoughts on ageing gracefully, and her beauty routine, (spoiler: she's very low maintenance). But the 42-year-old didn't glaze over how young women have been negatively implicated by social media. "Just today a close friend, a younger actress who is well-known, [...]
How young is too young to be on social media? Strictly speaking, only those aged 13 and over are allowed to use Facebook. But the prevention methods are trivial, meaning more than 20 million under-13-year-olds are thought to be using the network. So on Monday, Facebook launched its first app tailored for young users. It's a [...]
Nearly a third of teenage girls have been sexually harassed online by children their own age, a study from charity Childnet suggests. Some 31% of girls aged 13-17 have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention, compared with 11% of boys. One in 10 of the 1,559 teens interviewed reported receiving threats of sexual violence, including [...]
I never realised just how damaging our obsession with smartphones and our switched-on lifestyle was, nor how addictive screen time was, until I put my teenagers on an extended digital detox. The results were swift and shocking, raising the question of just what is happening to the selfie generation and whether we have more to fear [...]
With around half of the Australian population logging into Facebook on a daily basis (yes, that's 12.2 million of us), it's safe to say social media plays a large role in many of our everyday lives. Of course, while there are numerous benefits to social media use, what you get out of it corresponds rather [...]
Earlier this week, Harvard University revealed that it had rescinded admissions offers to at least 10 students who shared offensive images within what they thought was a private Facebook group chat. The students posted memes and images that mocked minority groups, child abuse, sexual assault and the Holocaust, among other things. It is easy for [...]
Four of the five most popular forms of social media harm young people’s mental health, with Instagram the most damaging, according to research by two health organisations. Instagram has the most negative impact on young people’s mental wellbeing, a survey of almost 1,500 14- to 24-year-olds found, and the health groups accused it of deepening [...]
