The Dr. John Delony Show - RANT: Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode My teenage son is getting bullied; how do I help him? Daughter says she's bisexual but doesn't want me to tell her dad Rant: Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show Lyrics of the Day: "Happy Together" - The Turtles   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp dreamcloudsleep.com/delony Conversation Starters Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: kids, parenting, abuse, special needs, sexuality/intimacy, technology/social media   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to two different moms who are wrestling with how they can best support their teenagers, bullying with keeping secrets from dad. And we also talk about this article. Facebook and Instagram know what they're doing to our kids and what we can do to help. Stay tuned. What up?

This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad you're with us. We talk about mental health, relationships, families, parenting. James' obsession with ponies and unicorns. I don't know, some weird thing. He likes dragons and unicorns. He's got all these games

he's always playing back in there. Kelly's not here, but Austin is here. Full beard. Not near as... I'm just going to stop right there. I'm glad you're here, Austin. See money over there on the screens, pushing buttons and knobs and faders.

It's good to see everybody, all smiling faces. James, listen. I just looked over at everybody, all smiling faces. James, listen. I just looked over at you and you're just wiping your brow. It's like, oh, God, I hate my job. I'm just thinking about all the money that Kelly's racking up when you say listen. Oh, dude, man. What were you going to say? I was going to say I've got this incredible article from the Wall Street Journal

out September 14th on what Facebook knows about Instagram and kids. So hang tight. This, this is a good one. And it gives me hemorrhoids. This, this, if I wish this episode was brought to you by Preparation H, it is not, but when I read this, it gave me such GAS. It makes me rage.

I'm working hard on that sponsorship. Don't you worry. Preparation H for the hemorrhoids. I don't really have hemorrhoids, America. And by America,

I mean all 33 of us. Y'all know that. Oh man, I just made this all weird now. Austin's like, dude, what show am I, what are we doing? I worked hard to get to this. I went to college, told my friends, hey, guys, guess what? I'm on this new show. I thought I got out of the medical field.

We are back, my friend. We are back. I don't even know where to go from hemorrhoids. Let's go to Marie in Anchorage. What's up, Marie? How's it going? Good. How are you?

I'm from Preparation H to my question. To Marie. Yes. And listen, this is probably one of those moments when you were like, I was going to tell my friends I was on the show. And then the lead in is talking about hemorrhoids and how angry I get at Facebook and Instagram. So sorry about that. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pause.

And now you can just cut it and hand it directly to them from there. And that way you'll miss all of the weird stuff where I talk about my body. All right, so how's it going? Perfect. It's going good. My question is, I have a son that is dealing with bullying at school, and he seems to be super unhappy. And he's kind of a pessimistic personality. He's a twin.

He's kind of always been that way a little bit. Okay. And I'm not sure, as a parent, how do you balance? Like I want to, I mean, they talk to me more than any other, I have three older kids too that are grown and these boys talk to me. I mean, I'm so blessed, but, um, you know, hearing what they're saying, it's like, I want to validate their feelings. I want to listen. I want to take it seriously. But at the same time, life is super hard. Is it normal stuff that I'm dealing with? Do I toughen him up?

You know, how do I balance all of that? Because he is my baby. Things are harder for him than his twin academically, socially. It's hard for him to express himself. And, you know, now he's not trying to school at all and he's suffering and he's telling me about it. And I just don't know. I need real things to do. I need real things that will help. Do I take them in and try medication? We tried it when he was younger. Do I take him out of school, put him in a new school? You know, do I, I don't know, I'm lost First Man

That's so hard, that's heartbreaking Because you love that little boy, right? He is amazing Absolutely amazing I hate that for him, I hate that for you Talented Beyond belief What's he talented in?

He is musically talented Beyond belief. He could maybe be on the spectrum with things. He is musically talented. He can drum like no other. He has a comedic humor that is far beyond his peers. So I don't think they understand him. A room full of adults would be in stitches. But I just think that he's 14 and he's, you know, things are super,

like I said, they're super hard for him and he has a twin brother that everything's easy for. And so being compared. He not only, yeah, he not only has the acute feelings of people picking on him

and giving him crap or realizing I got a funny joke here and nobody gets how funny this is or I'm drumming on stuff and the teachers always holler at him to be still and quit moving and this and that. But he also has a picture of himself in another body doing everything right. Right. They're not identical.

They don't look anything alike. So that helps. Okay. Okay. So it's just this weird, ugly brother. That's fine. It's totally different. Okay. okay. So it's just this weird, ugly brother. That's fine. That's totally different. Okay, so great questions

and really something that parents all over have been wrestling with for a long time. Do I just, like, life is hard and let's let them get toughened up. If I run in there and rescue them for everything, I'm actually stealing from them in the future, from their future selves. I'm preventing them from learning how to solve problems, how to get resources, etc.

And bullying's changed over the last 20 years. There's a digital component to it, cyberbullying, right? These things that our brains have mechanisms. Well, I want to talk about that too. Okay, okay. Kids have gotten mean in a way that they've always been mean. Kids have always been ugly and mean, but it has changed. The stuff I dealt with as a kid was brutal, and the stuff I saw my students deal with

for the last 20 years is another level. It is brutal. And I think lack of civility from parents, change in entertainment has shifted. There's just everything's just laid on top of each other. And whoa, loss of consequences. When I was a kid, if you mouthed off to the wrong guy, you got hit in the mouth. There was a natural consequence. And I'm not saying that's great, but it was a leveling effect.

We all knew you do this. This could be a result. That's gone now. And if you hit somebody, you go to jail. And so there's just this consequence-free environment. And there's just some kids who are just paying the price for it. So here's the litmus test for me. And I will tell you, this is hard for me because I messed this up with my own kid.

And I won't go into too much detail, but I didn't do it the right way. I didn't listen to him and I missed some things and I just have to live with that and I got to forgive myself and then do better next time, which is good, but I didn't listen. So the difference is kids say mean stuff. That's life. Kids push on each other and get in each other's faces and say things. That's life.

So there's a difference between kids who are mean and kids experiencing mean things or uncomfortable things and bullying. So the definition of bullying is a couple of things. Aggressive, repetitive, intentional, and power dynamic. So is your kid constantly drumming in class on things and the kid next to him says, hey, spaz, hey, maniac, quit. Right. That in my mind is not bullying. See, I try to get to the bottom of that. And when we do sometimes, I'm like, eh, you know, I think that's not that bad.

You're thinking, I'm going to tell him these things, right? I want to tell you that exact same thing. Were you being annoying? Exactly. There you go. Or is there a guy, a kid, a young lady, is there a group who seek your son out to prop themselves up? They seek him out to diminish him, to make fun of him, to mock him. And they send him text messages or Snapchats that reinforce that he's less than, that he's dumb, and it's pervasive.

It goes on and on and on. So when somebody's mean, you can avoid them. You walk away. Or if somebody does a thing, they snap at you and say something like, you're an idiot, you're stupid, you're always moving around. That's annoying. It's not bullying. It's the pervasive, aggressive, repetitive.

They are seeking my kid out. So that's number one. Number two is have you involved school support network yet? Mm-hmm. So have you called teacher and said, hey, my son is telling me these things. What are you seeing? Yes. And they were unaware of that.

Of course, they wanted names. And I personally, like when I'm talking about certain kids that do these things, I mean, I've't want them to go, you know, get the wrath of their parents. Like you, I can't believe you said that to another child when they're 14 and they all say really stupid things all the time. Like my kids do it. Everybody does it. They do. But you and I, what's just stupid and roll your eyes and dumb, you and I have 15 or 20 years worth of wisdom and Teflon and our little ones don't. And so if you put yourself in their position as a parent, and if you got a call that said your son was saying this to some young little girl in her class, some 14 year old girl in her class, or to a 14 year old little boy in your class and your blood would boil, make that phone call. Yeah. Say, Hey, can we, I'm struggling. I want my, you know, we've known each other for a long time and have that conversation. I would start with the school

in my situation. I did. I started with the school and I didn't see it clearly enough that what my son was trying to communicate to me and we had him in some fancy pants, highfalutin, nonsensical private school and now he's at a public school, loving, loving, loving life. And that's not a statement on public schools or private schools.

I just thought that because it's fancy, it's gonna be perfect. And it was a disaster for him. They let him know you don't belong here, both implicitly and explicitly, both the teachers and the students. And so I didn't listen. I kept trying to drill down into the instances.

But what did this kid say that one time? And what I didn't, my 10 year old or nine year old or seven-old didn't have was the ability to articulate. I don't belong there, man. And every time I go, I am not okay. And I didn't have that language. And so we stayed another year and we shouldn't have. And then we got him into a new environment and it made all the difference.

If you think your kid might be on the spectrum, you mentioned that. What makes you think that? enigma. He's kind of all over the place. He just tests super high in some things and just way below proficiency in others. I mean, he's just... I wish you could meet him. He sounds amazing. He sounds incredible. He is, but communicating how he feels

and stuff is not something that's easy. When I have a conversation with him and I love him to pieces it's super frustrating I mean it's like my other son is like easy for me to talk to and I have one that's hard even though I'm listening to him

and feeling for him I want you to try this it may not work but I have had some moms reach out to me, and it just happens to be moms who've reached out and said they won the lottery with this one. I want you to get a notebook that you all share. And he owes you either a written response,

a story about the day, or a picture, or a poem, or something every day, and you will respond. Oh, my gosh. See, this is why I called. I want real homework. So get a, it can be, if I'm you, I would overpay for something. I would go to the store and get some leather bound, non like some highfalutin something or other and make it all kumbaya and special. Um, and I would say this is for just me and you. And you write in there one, two, and three, what were some hard things about today? And one, two, and three, what were some good things about today?

And I want you to begin to focus on this can happen at bedtime. This can happen at dinnertime. Dinnertime is really great because it's hard to hide there. No electronics at the dinner table, no headphones, no disappearing. And everyone's going to go around the table and say, here's the B&Ws. What was the best and worst parts of the day? What's the goods and the bads? And there's all kinds of different words for that. But here's what we want to do. I want us to begin to verbalize in our house. We look for beauty and we find it, even when things are hard. And you have to model that.

Dad has to model that. If he's around, brother has to model that. Everybody's got to model it. And often that pessimism is absorbed somewhere. And it may be because there's no sunshine months at a time. It may be, I don't know. Is he getting that somewhere? Well, I don't know. Is he getting that somewhere? Well, I mean, I think he lives the same life that everyone else does now.

I know you're laughing. I think that his dad and I are very I can sort of people. So I don't know. We just do, do, do, do, do. So I don't know. I don't know if he's just another way that he doesn't fit in. Because I remember when he was little, I was like, you know, Oscar, I said his name, sometimes you have to choose to be happy. Like it's a choice.

You just have to be like, I'm not going to let this get me down. And he's like, I try to tell myself to be happy. It doesn't work. So let's change the language. Change the language. Because I think that when you tell somebody, and I've done this too a bajillion times, you can choose to be happy. I don't think that's true anymore.

I do think you can choose the things to do the things that help you become happy. So what I mean by that is I can't sit at home and say, be happy, idiot, because I want. Right, right.

But I can get up and go outside and go for a walk and write in my gratitude journal and write my grandma a note, even though she passed away several years ago. I can draw my – my five-year-old daughter is obsessed with getting letters from me, and it's amazing. It's so great. I can write her a letter. I can do those things that I know on the back end. I can eat well. I can go garden for a while, whatever the thing is. I can do the things that I know are going to pay off.

But those are a physiological response. I can go play my guitar. I can go do those things. It's not forcing myself into a set of feelings. Right. And so what I would love to see y'all do is to begin to back away from that language. You should be feeling like this, and sometimes you just got to do these things even if you don't feel like it, because you will on the back end.

Yep. Yep. Does that make sense? Yep. Yep. Yep. And we have those conversations too. Awesome.

We do all the time. Yep. And remember, a 14-year-old is going to not listen to you. He's going to watch you. Yes. And he's not going to listen to you. He's going to watch you. Yes. And he's not going to listen to dad. He's going to watch everybody. And in a culture that you guys are in of do, do, do, dropping somebody in who feel, feel, feels is hard.

And so if you model, no, I feel that. It's hard and it stinks. I'm sorry. And you model. And then we go do, both and I feel that. It's hard and it stinks. I'm sorry. And you model and then we go do both and then that's the gift to him. But I do think it's worth starting with a school counselor, starting with a teacher and setting up a meeting. And you will get a sense very quickly. This teacher doesn't care about my kid.

You'll get a sense very quickly. This teacher wants to jump in and solve this. That's not what you're asking for. Will you just keep an eye out on my kid and if we get to a place where you are reading this daily journal back and forth and by the way if he doesn't write in this thing even if he's being obnoxious and being a 14 year old i love 14 year olds they're so great they're hilarious and obnoxious and so sarcastic. I just love them. And he won't write in it, then he loses privilege.

I mean, this is part of opting into your home, that we all participate in this. We all communicate with one another. And I'm giving you a new avenue. And you owe me a poem or a picture or a song or a how are you doing. You owe me three things you saw today that were beautiful. You owe me those things every day. It's part of our ongoing dialogue in our home. or a how are you doing, you owe me three things you saw today that were beautiful. You owe me those things every day. It's part of our ongoing dialogue in our home.

If you see those things beginning to dip down, or heaven forbid, he starts talking about, I don't think I should be here, I don't want to be here, self-harm kind of stuff, then you flip on the lights and sound the alarms. But let's work on the communication stuff. So let's come up with a new way to communicate with one another. And it could be that y'all just write hilarious poems back and forth, or you write letters to each other back, whatever that looks like.

And let's talk about not forcing, not choosing to feel a certain way, but let's choose to do the things that are going to lead us to feeling okay. Great, great, great question, Marie. You're awesome. He's lucky to have you. That little boy won the lottery with having you as his mama. And don't hesitate. If it's pervasive, aggressive, intentional over and over,

call parents, call a school, take it from somebody who didn't. And I wish I had them. I wish I had them. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. All right, we are back. Jack. What's up, Sarah and Bangor, Maine?

You're not Jack. I was just trying to rhyme because I want to be a rapper, but I'm not. I just made this whole thing a mess. How are you? Okay, how are you? I'm good. What's going on?

Well, thanks for taking my call. You bet. I've got kind of a dilemma. Bring it on. My daughter was res outed to me by her younger siblings. Okay. Go back and do that again. I just cut out. Um, my preteen daughter recently outed to me by her younger siblings as being bisexual. Okay. She doesn't want to talk about it and she has made me promise not to tell her dad. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I'm, I'm trying to figure out how do I balance

your daughter's trust versus being honest with my husband in our marriage? What do you, what do you, have you ever listened to this show before many times yeah number one thank you there's only about 11 of us left and so I'm grateful what do you think you should do I don't know

how are you handling all this info I've been just kind of talking to her trying to convince her to talk to her dad. Okay. Because I don't think that he's going to freak out about it. He's very accepting. I wanted him to be able to help support her. And I believe in honesty between us.

So I just don't want to do it against her wishes and have her not trust me. Gotcha. Okay. So a couple of super important moments here. And is she your oldest? Yes. Awesome. So you have a chance to screw this up and you'll never get it back. Okay. So I'm just worried about, I'm totally kidding. Um, totally, totally kidding. So, but this is a really neat moment in your family's history, especially in your relationship with her. And so hold two things in, uh, one in one hand and one on the other. Okay. First thing is you are modeling what a good marriage looks like. So that's a meta.

That's something that's going to pay dividends down the road. And we all know secrets destroy marriages. Yes. And you're modeling how you best love somebody who's going through some sort of anything. And so I think it's really important that you sit down with her and say, I love you. And I do not keep secrets in my marriage. So what if I told dad, my husband, let's call him Bill,

I'm gonna tell Bill that you came to me with a really big thing that I found out about it. And it was big and it's on your heart and that we are talking about it together and that you are uncomfortable talking to him. But one day we'll have that conversation together. And that's a middle ground. It's letting her know, I'm going to tell him, here is one way we could do it. Or I will tell him everything, but I'll let him know that you don't want to talk about it yet. And I will let you have that conversation with him on your terms when you're ready. And if you can hear my language there, it's going to happen.

It doesn't have to be right now. But I'm not going to hold secrets from my husband. Does that make sense? It does. So there's some discomfort there, I get. How old is she? Almost 13. Okay.

Your 13-year-old doesn't get a vote. How about that? Right. In how your marriage is going to go and which things you are and aren't going a vote. How about that? Right. In how your marriage is going to go and which things you are and aren't going to tell. It feels like you're violating her trust. You're not. The other side of this is,

this is an entry point. This is a testing moment for how are you going to handle my heart? And this, you'll have a hundred of these or a thousand, not a thousand, but you'll have a bunch of these before y'all's relationship is over someday. Right. When you're an old, old, old 200 year old grandma.

The other hand here is you're holding is how are you going to handle my heart when I tell you something hard? And that's when there's less info, less trying to convince, less data and more. how are we feeling today? Tell me what's on your heart and mind. What's going on? Does that make sense? It does.

I think one of the biggest things she's ever confided in me she's been to kill people and honestly You're cutting out a little bit. Say that again. So this is the biggest thing she's ever conf to confide in people. And honestly, I didn't hear her. You're cutting out a little bit. Say that again. So this is the biggest thing she's ever come by in you?

Yeah, she's not one to confide in people. She keeps things to herself. Okay. You know, this being something that now I have in my keeping, if I start telling people that she's going to be something where she's not going to confide in me in the future. And I think, so let's look at this a different way. So you're breaking up a little bit.

So, but I heard it and I want to make sure that the listener, everybody's hearing this. Your daughter doesn't confide in a lot of people. She keeps things very private. And she has multiple, who knows the reasons. She's a 13, 14-year-old young woman. But she keeps things private. In her head, the worst case scenario is that people find out these things, whatever these things happen to be.

And then she's ostracized. She's mocked she's told she's dumb her feelings don't matter all that stuff a great gift for her can be to find out a i know everything about you and i still love you because in her head love is a performance love is a tightrope she's trying to walk about what she feels like she's feeling, whatever pressure she's receiving from the outside world, and then trying to bring home and then also perform as your daughter or your husband's daughter or as the oldest kid, fill in the blank. A gift for her, and this is gentle, can be, no, I hear you and you don't shock me. I hear you and I love you. I hear you and I want to learn more about you. Because at the end of the day, all of us really want two things, to be fully known and still loved. And for a kid who keeps things

private, who keeps things held to their chest, they are hedging their bets that if you really knew, you wouldn't love me. And so there's a gift there done in a very gentle way, not in a, oh, I'm telling him, come on in. Hey, Bill, come here. You're not going to believe this. That's the wrong way, right?

The right way saying, I don't keep secrets from dad. I just don't. But I also want to honor your trust and I love you. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have to let him know that you and I are having some difficult, challenging, deep conversations. I can either tell him for you or be with you. I'll hold your hand while you tell him or I'm going to let him know that you and I are talking about some hard stuff and that you're not ready to share it with him but sometime

you will be willing to share it and give her that choice and she needs to know that she's not in control of the house, she's 13 that's too much of a burden for a 13 year old to carry and even if she says you swore you would never tell to know that she's not in control of the house. She's 13. That's too much of a burden for a 13-year-old to carry. Right. And even if she says, you swore you would never tell,

tell her, I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I put too much on you because you're carrying too much and mom and dad's job is to help carry stuff for you because you're 13. Let her know that you're sorry. You shouldn't have said that if that's what you did say. And by the way, parents, never tell your teenage kids that i promise i won't tell never ever ever ever tell

them that that's an aside that was to everybody else not to you sir um and do less and i'm not saying you are doing this this is just every parent whenever we get faced with these things i don't know what to say when my kid comes out and says they're bi and they're 13 or they're 14 and i don't know what to say when they say don't tell dad you promise it i don't know what to say when my kid comes out and says they're bi and they're 13 or they're 14 and I don't know what to say when they say don't tell dad you promise it I don't know what to say with these things I don't have to say my kid wanted to play basketball and they're on the varsity team and now that you want to quit I don't know what to say that my kid doesn't believe in my church anymore I don't know what to say with these things say less and sit closer and say things like tell me more.

Okay. What are you feeling? Where is that in your body? What are you nervous about? What are you excited about? And lean more towards less words and less data and more connection. Okay. And then when you get to the, can I, instead of playing basketball, I really just want to go out to the park and smoke weed with my buddies. You can say, you don't have to play basketball, but you're not going to go smoke weed with your buddies.

Right? Boundaries come later. But right now it's about connection because my guess is your daughter is still trying to figure out who she is and what she is, and she's trying to find out what role she plays in your house. And most importantly, she's trying to find out, will y'all still love me? And most importantly, what does love look like? Does it look like cutting me off? Does it look like abandonment? Does it look like you're going to turn your back on me? Does it look like you're going to move out? What does it look like? And saying, I love you enough to A, am I going to

hold it? Am I going to let you carry this by yourself? Cause you're 12, you're 13, I love you enough to A, am I going to let you carry this by yourself because you're 12 or you're 13? I love you enough to let you know I don't keep secrets from my husband, and people who are married don't keep secrets from one another. And I love you enough to let you know this is your story to tell. And so when you're ready,

you can be the one to tell that, unless you want me to do it for you. You're going to tell him, but it doesn't have to be today. But you and I are going to keep talking because I know you're working through some stuff. And I know you're thinking about some things and trying to figure out who you are like every 13 or 14 year old on planet earth is. And exhale. Sarah, she is lucky to have you as her mom. Lucky to have you. And by the way, you're going to feel a great burden relieved when you're not having to try to navigate a 13-year-old's feelings

because they can be a lot and they don't always tell the truth. And by the way, neither 20-year-old feelings or 35-year-old feelings or 50-year-old feelings or 75-year-old feelings. Our feelings are important and they lie to us a lot. Thank you so much for that call, Sarah. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Hey, what's up? Deloney here.

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today at johndeloney.com. All right. I know y'all could not wait for hemorrhoid time. We are here. Burns, burns, burns like a ring of fire. So if you don't know, Facebook bought Instagram several years ago. Was it 2013 maybe? Something like that. 2014. Bought them for like a billion dollars. Facebook realized that they were becoming the place where old people complain about everything. They trade Preparation H recipes and scream about politics at one another where they thumbs down each other. And they're, I don't know, they make signs and quips and pass along bad science and stupid stuff. And so they bought Instagram where the kids were flocking to. And as any good company does, they do market testing on how their product is working, how it's being received, how the end user is experiencing their products. And what are some challenges moving forward?

What are some opportunities moving forward? You know, SWOT analysis. And if you've seen in the news, Facebook was working on, Instagram's working on a product for under 13-year-olds. What's an Instagram product for kids, for children? Then this article in the Wall Street Journal comes out. We'll link to it in the show notes. The title is by Georgia Wells, Jeff Horwitz, and Deepa Sitharaman. Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls company documents show. Here's a couple of excerpts. 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. This is from internal research that they did on their own product inside their company from, I don't know how this thing was leaked, but it was internal research documents presented to employees, including the executives.

Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves. These are internal documents. One of the internal documents said, we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. As they summarize research about teen girls who experienced the issues. Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression, body image issues. And this reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups. 13% of British users and 6% of American users trace the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one internal presentation slide showed. And this article goes on and on and on. Features that Instagram identifies as most harmful to teens appear to be at the platform's core.

These are not peripheral things. These are core to how Instagram works, how the algorithms work, how it uses pictures and pithy little sayings and how it uses full bodies instead of like TikTok focuses on faces or on fill in the blank. The core presentation of Instagram is hurting kids. Full bodies instead of like TikTok focuses on faces or on fill in the blank. The core presentation of Instagram is hurting kids. In August, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg called on him to release Facebook's internal research on the impact of its platforms on youth mental health. In response, Facebook sent the senators a six-page letter that didn't include anything about the company's own studies. Instead, it said, we are not aware of a consensus among studies or experts about how much screen time is too much. Totally dodged it. In fact, when they said, we want to see your research that you have done on your products on how it's affecting kids, they said, well, we don't know of any studies out there.

Thanks for the inquiry. Remember when cancer, when smoking tobacco producers had all those studies on cancer and they said, oh, crap, and they buried them. And as several more companies are coming to the forefront, they're buying their own scientists, they're hiring scientists, and then they're doing their own internal research, not relying on university labs often because university labs are publicly funded and that means the results both good and or bad are in the public sphere. And so if I just hire my own scientists do my own internal data my own internal research

I own all the results which means I can take the bad ones and put them in a shredder. That means if I'm creating the next new diet supplement and it kills people or gives them rocket diarrhea or they lose 800 pounds and cognitive function, but I find one study of the 20 I did that says, oh, they lost 0.02% body fat when they took this supplement, I can say, research backs that this thing works, and I can take all 19 other studies and put in the drawer. That's what's happening here. Man. Some of the researchers, Jonathan Haidt said,

I asked Mark Zuckerberg to help us out as parents and Mark said, I'm working on it. Here's the thing. I promise you, I promise you, both from my personal experience, from the data, the ever-increasing data, that is coming out in study after study after study after study,

that handing kids a smartphone and saying, make good choices, is going to have dramatic negative effects. What your kids are desperate for is you and human connection and friends, not curated imaginary worlds that look real and that make them feel worse about themselves, that make them want to not exist anymore. And the company, I'll say plural, the companies that are creating this, know. They know. And it's just a matter of time. And we're all going to say, oh, we knew better. I'm calling on his parents. Let's do it differently. Let's be different. It's my friend Nathan and I, we are always back and forth.

Be the only one. Be the first and only parent in your little circle that says, you know what? We're just taking this crap away from our kids. We're taking it away. We're gonna make our kids communicate with real people. They can Zoom their friends in the living room, but they're not going to be on these platforms just rolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Parents, connect with your kids. Take the screens away. Take the apps away,

the social media away. Stop, stop, stop. You can disagree with me on that. I'd love to hear your disagreements. Write me your emails. Let me know that I'm wrong and that I'm crazy. I'd love to hear it. I've not seen one compelling research study, one compelling interaction with a child who made me think, you know what? I'm wrong. I should give my kids, all my kids social media. They're seven. They should have TikTok. You're right. They are nine. They should be on Instagram. Yeah, you know what? I need to get my kids Twitter. That's probably a smart idea. I haven't seen one. I haven't seen one. I have seen a bunch of exhausted parents, myself included, who are just like, you know what? I'm, I'm, I'm whatever. I'm gonna go watch Netflix. I'm tired. Do whatever you're going to do. Make good choices.

And parents, it's not enough anymore. It's not enough anymore. Let's do right by our kids. All right, hemorrhoids over. And to get us out of this, we're going to— Ah, hemorrhoids aren't over. How are— I don't even know how they're over. I know there's some procedures and stuff.

I don't want to talk about that. We are not talking about that. When did this song came out? It came out a long time ago. Which one is it? The Turtles. 60s? The 60s.

A long time ago before there was compact discs and CD players. That is a compact disc. Eight tracks, tapes. People just sat in a room and played music together. And the Turtles wrote an incredible song.

James hates this song because it's all about joy and positivity. It's not really his jam. I love this song. I know, you do love this song. It's called Happy Together. This is the antidote to social media, good folks, and it goes like this. Imagine me and you. I do.

I think about you day and night. It's only right to think about the girl you love, so hold her tight, so happy together. If I should call you up, invest a dime, and you say you belong to me and ease my mind, imagine how the world could be so very fine so happy not scrolling on an app but so happy together i can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life not a lot of uh punctual i mean uh grammar we're not not big on grammar but they are the turtles um when you're with me baby the skies will be blue for all my life. I could see Facebook using this in a commercial, actually.

For sure they are. No more apps! This is the Dr. John Delaney Show.