Risks vs. Harms: Youth & Social Media

Popular media often characterize youths’ use of social media as overwhelmingly negative, reporting that teens engage in reckless, unsafe behaviors with little thought to their online privacy or safety. Typically, these popular media accounts are based on adults’ prescriptive views of youths’ attitudes and behaviors.

If you asked me what the true danger about social media is, I’d say it’s much more subtle. It’s the problem of time—and becoming stuck in the present. It’s the relentless pressure of reverse chron.

Content moderation is irrelevant. The greatest possible danger of social media is the catalyzation of mass, relatively instant global action on incomplete or incorrect information.

If you ban technologies you’re not able to figure out how to steer them for our benefit. Social Media, is still in its infancy. We haven’t yet figured out how to use it properly