3 Ways for Big Tech to Protect Teens From Harm

3 Ways for Big Tech to Protect Teens From Harm

4 years ago
Anonymous $-riAjkQg_1

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-3-ways-for-big-tech-to-protect-teens-from-harm/

A 17-year-old state-ranked soccer player walked into the psychiatrist’s office wearing a bulky grey sweater in the middle of June and 2 rubber bands around her small wrists. With a half smile, she said that in the past year she had lost 21 pounds as well as her menstrual periods in the past year, after reading “weight loss tips” on Instagram and Tumblr. The “tips” included specific recommendations and support for behaviors that lead to anorexia, like to snap the rubber band around her wrist when she wanted to eat. Now, she found she couldn’t stop searching for more pictures of dangerously underweight teens sharing tips on how to suppress appetite, and had learned tricks for finding more harmful content, like slightly changing the search terms by a letter or two to avoid getting caught by Instagram’s safety filters.

Neha Chaudhary, MD @NehaChaudharyMD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She is a co-founder of Brainstorm, The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation and is on the APA's Committee on Innovation. She also consults to tech companies, including Pinterest.

Nina Vasan, MD, MBA @NinaVasan is a psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor at Stanford School of Medicine. She is the director of Brainstorm, Chair of the APA's Committee on Innovation, and author of Do Good Well. She also consults to tech companies, including Pinterest. Follow her on Twitter.