"It Stains Your Brain" - Violence On Social Media

Seven must-read stories about parental exhaustion, the Body Mass Index, and online grooming. PLUS: Oregon is about to require education about porn in sex ed classes.

Hi Readers!

• For those who are new around here — welcome to Teen Health Today!

• Every week, I publish a free Teen Health Today newsletter - this week’s was “How To Talk To Teens About Condoms.”

• In addition, I regularly send out curated collections of thought-provoking essays and news stories (like the one your are reading right now) to paid subscribers. They are only available to paid subscribers because it takes me quite a while to pull them together.

• This is a great time to subscribe, because I’m having a 30% off sale! For just 67¢ a week, you can read everything behind the paywall!

---

In this edition:

• 'It Stains Your Brain': How Social Media Algorithms Show Violence To Boys

• Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better.

• Time to Say Goodbye to the B.M.I.?

• “I Was Groomed By Someone I Met Playing Video Games Online: What I Want Parents And Kids To Know”

• Should Parents Of Boys Set Aside The Topic Of Toxic Masculinity? This Author Thinks So

• In Historic Case, Father Of 14-Year-Old School Shooting Suspect Charged With Murder

• Porn Is Everywhere. Why Has School Sex Ed Mostly Ignored It?

---

Photo by Anika Huizinga on Unsplash

'It Stains Your Brain': How Social Media Algorithms Show Violence To Boys (BBC)

Andrew Kaung was working as an analyst on user safety at TikTok, a role he held for 19 months from December 2020 to June 2022.

He says he and a colleague decided to examine what users in the UK were being recommended by the app’s algorithms, including some 16-year-olds. Not long before, he had worked for rival company Meta, which owns Instagram - another of the sites Cai uses.

When Andrew looked at the TikTok content, he was alarmed to find how some teenage boys were being shown posts featuring violence and pornography, and promoting misogynistic views, he tells BBC Panorama. He says, in general, teenage girls were recommended very different content based on their interests. READ MORE

---

Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better. (New York Times)

When I became a parent, a friend told me I was signing up for a lifetime of joy and worry. The joys are indeed abundant, but as fulfilling as parenting has been, the truth is it has also been more stressful than any job I’ve had. I’ve had many moments of feeling lost and exhausted. So many parents I encounter as I travel across America tell me they have the same experience: They feel lucky to be raising kids, but they are struggling, often in silence and alone.