Experience Stern | Faculty & Research

When the tobacco industry was accused of marketing harmful products to teens, its leaders denied the charge but knew it was true. Even worse, the industry had claimed that smoking made people healthier—by reducing anxiety, say, or slimming waistlines.

The social-media industry is using a similar technique today. Instead of acknowledging the damage their products have done to teens, tech giants insist that they are blameless and that their products are mostly harmless. And at times, a more audacious claim is made: that social media helps teens, even as mounting evidence suggests that it’s harming many of them and playing a substantial role in the mental-health crisis afflicting young people in numerous countries around the world.

When Mark Zuckerberg was asked in 2022 about Meta’s own finding that Instagram made many teen users feel worse about their body, for instance, he cleverly reframed the result. After noting other, more favorable findings in the same study, he proclaimed that his platform was “generally positive” for teens’ mental health, even though at least one in 10 teen girls reported that Instagram worsened each of the following: body image, sleep, eating habits, and anxiety. (Zuckerberg also failed to mention internal data demonstrating the other dangers that social media poses for teens.)

Read the full The Atlantic article.
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Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership.