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Is Social Media More Like Cigarettes or Junk Food?

Lawmakers attempting to regulate children’s access to social media must decide whether bans or warning labels are the optimal route for keeping kids safe.

In 1973, a trailblazing nutritionist named Jean Mayer warned the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs that the increasingly ubiquitous category of junk foods could be described as empty calories. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist who became a whistle-blower, told a Senate subcommittee that her ex-employer’s “profit optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate—especially for vulnerable groups, like teenage girls.” A growing number of parents worry that their children are perpetually distracted and obsessed with their phones, and a mounting body of research supports these concerns. Jones focussed on two considerations: “whether the platforms have redeeming development value, and whether parents can provide effective guidance.” Early social media was often described in utopian terms, and few people argued that it was harmful or addictive; in that context, a ban would have seemed arbitrary.

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