Sextortion, Bullying and Suicide

Social media poses a threat to children's safety and mental health. It exposes them to cyberbullying, adult predators, and the fear of missing out. Studies show that excessive social media use is linked to mental health problems in adolescents. Social media platforms can create feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem due to exposure to idealized versions of other people's lives. Adolescents may also engage in self-diagnosis of mental illnesses online, leading to potential harm. Social media is designed to be addictive, and it can contribute to cyberbullying, sextortion, and sex trafficking. Despite the negative impacts, social media is not going away, but there is a growing backlash against it. Sex Torsion, Bullying, and Suicide. The Real Threat of Social Media to Your Child by Richard Breen. Parents used to tell their children not to take rides from strangers. Nowadays, anyone can use a mobile app to call a stranger for a ride at any hour of the day or night. If that's not jarring enough, evidence of how technology has blurred old definitions of safe behavior, many more examples can be found on social media. Today's kids face a minefield as more and more of their daily interactions are pushed online. From cyberbullying to adult predators posing as children, social media is blamed for everything ranging from fear of missing out or FOMO to an increase in suicides. While debate continues as to how social media has negatively impacted society, families can mitigate the potential harm to their children. A Mental Health Crisis In 2023, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on social media and youth mental health. He asked that tech companies and others work together to get a better understanding of the full impact of social media on children and adolescents whose brains are still developing. A study of 6,595 U.S. adolescents published in JAMA Psychiatry concluded those who spent more than three hours per day on social media may be at heightened risk for mental health problems. Youths shouldn't ignore the messenger. When they're not feeling well emotionally, according to Dr. Pete Loper Jr., a Midlands pediatrician and child and adolescent psychiatrist, just like a sore ankle or belly might indicate an underlying physical problem. Depression or anxiety is a messenger of an underlying issue, he says. We need to teach our children to acknowledge and engage with their negative feelings, not simply suppress them. Pete sees social media and the isolated bubbles it creates for its users as the latest shock to humans' centuries-old practice of living in small communities. The first thing that pops into my head, that it's a natural, he says on social media. Meaningful face-to-face interactions so important to mental health in young people dealing with anxieties have dwindled. That's where we get our resilience from. The core concept of community that's so vital to mental health and well-being has been degrading. Social media platforms sometimes refer to themselves as online communities. Some users are even able to use those platforms to maintain connections to friends and family as their in-person communities become dispersed. Pete describes the platforms as more akin to yesterday's unexplored frontiers, where in olden times, the unwary could easily become lost or get attacked by a bear or other predator. It's a metaphorical wilderness our children are wandering in, he says. A group of adolescents sitting together at a coffee shop or fast food joint has been a familiar American scene for decades. But instead of a perhaps too boisterous group conversation, today, one might see the youths all silently staring down at their smartphones. They're isolated in their own virtual wilderness. What might be considered the mildest social media stressor for young people, but wants that still can pack a punch, is fear of missing out. FOMO takes the age-old adolescent concern that the cool, popular kids at school know something they don't and expand its worldwide thanks to social networks. Seeing peers posting photos of the great times they're having, the great things they own, the great places they go, and the other people they are with can lead to depression. Adolescents engage in a cycle of comparison, self-doubt, and anxiety, reports Kaiser Permanente. A California-based healthcare consultorium, social media provides exposure to idealized versions of other lives. This can create inflated standards and lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Given the amount of time youths spend online, they can be exposed to thousands of photos of celebrities and fitness models, and this comes at a time of life when they are vulnerable to body image issues and eating disorders. Pete describes it as socially prescribed perfectionism, the idea that I don't belong in this community unless I obtain an attainable standard of perfection. For years, adults have been guilty of using online medical information to self-diagnose real or imagined ills. Adolescents do the same thing, with the potential for long-term negative ramifications, according to Carmela Upright, a bioethicist, a professor at Furman University, and a clinical professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. In the perennial quest to find a place to fit in, some youths have latched on to online communities sharing a perceived malady. Weirdly, mental illness is somehow cool, Carmela says. I don't want mental illness to be stigmatized either, but it's not a funny thing to play around with. Carmela says an online cottage industry developed in the self-diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, which is marked by impulsive behavior, mood swings, and suicidal ideations. She has seen videos explaining what people should parrot to their doctor to ensure diagnosis. Borderline personality disorder is one of the most stigmatized diagnoses in mental health, she warns. Mental health professionals are afraid people with BPD are going to hurt themselves. They have a hard time finding medical treatment for all illnesses. Their pain reports aren't taken seriously. In another example, young women were going to platforms like TikTok, where influencers talked about Tourette syndrome. Alarmingly, many began to exhibit symptoms themselves. Influencers were developing actual disabling tics, Carmela says. This really hurt these young women. A groaning addiction. The American Psychological Association published research that found young people who reduced their social media use showed significant improvement in how they regarded their overall appearance. Still, the lure of the gloaming, pinging smartphone can be hard to resist. It's not surprising since social media platforms are designed to create addictive behavior. All those likes and responses produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter connected to feelings of pleasure. That carries over an anticipation of pleasure, which is why it sometimes feels impossible to stop scrolling through one's newsfeed. An article published by Harvard University compares social media apps to slot machines, with reward systems based on research pioneered by psychologist B.F. Skinner nearly 100 years ago. If we perceive a reward to be delivered at random, and if checking for the reward comes at little cost, we end up checking habitually, the article states. If you pay attention, you might find yourself checking your phone at the slightest feeling of boredom, purely out of habit. Social media platforms work very hard behind the screens to keep you doing exactly that. Cyberbullying, Sextortion, and Sex Trafficking Beyond the smiling emojis, social media can also be a place for negative reinforcement. A study by the Pew Research Center found that 46% of children aged 13 to 17 said they'd been subject to one or more of the forms of cyberbullying. For the study, cyberbullying fell into six categories. Being the victim of offensive name-calling, receiving explicit images they didn't request, having explicit images of them shared without their permission, receiving physical threats, spreading the false rumors, and being constantly asked by someone other than their parents where they are and what they're doing and who they're with. How serious is cyberbullying? In 2022, 17-year-old Gavin Guffey of Rock Hill took his life within hours after becoming the victim of an online scam known as sextortion. Often in sexual extortion crimes, scammers pretending to be girls will send nude photos to young boys and ask for nudes in return. Once the teenage boys send the photos, the scammers turn to cyberbullying, threatening to distribute the pics to the teen's social network, including colleges they may be applying to and the people with whom their parents work. At first, the motive of the typical sextortion attempt was to receive more explicit images from the young person. In more recent reports, including Gavin's, it appears the primary goal is money. Gavin's father, Brandon, now a state legislator, helped pass a bill that makes the scam a felony in South Carolina, punished by up to 20 years in prison. It also requires schools to educate students about sextortion. Sextortion is one of several internet-related crimes spotlighted by the state attorney's general office via its Human Trafficking Task Force. The AG's office reports that in 2023, the state law enforcement division opened 357 human trafficking cases involving 498 victims. Of those victims, 460 were minors. Catherine Moorhead, state task force director, describes a case in which an adult posed as a teenager on social media, specifically in chat rooms. He would compliment them, essentially groom them, and eventually request photos. Upon receiving the pictures, he would tell the youth he was an adult and threatened to send the photos to parents, friends, church leaders, and others. Of course, the kids don't know how to navigate such situations, Catherine says. The predator would then bargain with the youth, request information on how to sneak into youth's home at night. The predator then marked the information to sex offenders in the youth's area. What's next? A backlash against social media has become organized. In 2023, 42 state attorney generals, including South Carolina's Alan Wilson, filed lawsuits against META, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. School districts from Charlotte to Seattle announced similar lawsuits, some of which include the parents of platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok. Still, social media isn't going away. The surgeon general also pointed that data shown in potential positive impacts. Surveys found that 58% of adolescents say social media helps them feel more accepted. 67% say it gives them more people who can support them through tough times. 71% say it gives them a place to show their creative side, and 80% say it helps them feel like they're more connected to what's going on with their friends' lives. Carmela says good reason exists to use social media. In fact, she seeks out information and support for an actual diagnosed medical condition she has. We need to figure out ways to find out what our kids are doing, she says. I look at my kids' social media, and he knows that. Pete recommends social media apps like Bark, which allow parents to monitor content on their children's devices. While moving this is often a purview of the adolescent, Pete says sudden changes in how kids act out, who they act out toward, or a decline in school performance could be red flags. He also warns parents to be mindful of taking away a child's device, as withdrawal symptoms can occur. The AG's office has basic safety guidelines for parents and children, one of which is being a good digital role model. Pete agrees that parents need to model good social media behavior. He's gone into waiting rooms to greet adolescents and their parents and found them two feet apart in separate worlds, staring at their devices. Parents are completely disempowered to tell their children to limit their social media use when they're scrolling through social media all the time, he says. Their behavior is growing to be transmitted and become culturally normalized within the family. Pete suggests the concept of sacred time, a term coined by Adam Alter, a professor at New York University. It's an unplugging ritual, typically in the evenings before dinner or a family game night. Everyone including the parents puts away their devices and prepares for face-to-face interaction. It's perhaps one of the ways to ensure that a person sitting across the dining room table doesn't become a stranger too.