Alexis was a typical 11-year-old. She loved musical theater and Webkinz. But when she started using Instagram, her normal pre-teen curiosities triggered the social media app to flood her feed with content about anorexia and how to hide eating disorders from your parents. Over the next few years, Alexis' mental health deteriorated so much that she had to be hospitalized. Some families aren't so lucky.
Teen suicide rates have skyrocketed since 2007, and some research has begun to correlate that with the rise of algorithmic, for-profit social media. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become central to teenagers social lives, and it's probably not an accident.
Today, Alexis Spence has made a full recovery from her eating disorder, and with her mom Kathleen, has become an advocate for social media reform, especially through legal action. Alli and Lindsey talk with them, along with their lawyer, Matt Bergman, who co-founded the Social Media Victims Law Center. When suing Meta on behalf of families, his legal approach comes from product liability: If tech companies know their products are addictive and harmful to children and choose not to address that, they should be held accountable.
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The Space Cemetery in 'EVE Online' [Encore]
221 Plant Parenthood: How Psychedelics Can Help Parents Cope
220 What Is and Is Not "Free Speech" on the Internet?
219 Adult Breastfeeding & Nursing Relationships
Making Spreadsheets Fun With @BachelorData [ENCORE]
218 How One Direction Fandom Shaped the Social Web
217 Doctors of TikTok Fighting Medical Disinformation
216 The Good News Only Episode
Unnecessary Inventions [Encore Episode 148] September 28, 2020
215 The Woke Bible: Messed-Up Bible Stories With a Modern Twist
214 Autcraft: The Minecraft Server for Kids With Autism
213 May the 9th Be With You
212 r/Place and the Legacy of the "Million Dollar Homepage"
211 Letters From Furry Con and the Upsides of "Ass Pee"
210 How .GIFs Became the Lingua Franca of the Internet
209 TikTok ... Doom
208 This radio transmission has broadcast secret Russian military codes non-stop since 1982
207 Tumblr Communities That Shaped the Modern Web
[Encore] 167 Ships of the Northern Fleet (March 15, 2021)
206 How AfterEllen.com Became a Safe Haven for the Early LGBTQ+ Online Community
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