Social media giant Facebook has reportedly known for some time that its Instagram platform can have markedly deleterious effects on the mental health of young girls, yet the company nevertheless downplayed that information in public:

[R]esearchers inside Instagram, which is owned by Facebook Inc., were studying this kind of experience and asking whether it was part of a broader phenomenon. Their findings confirmed some serious problems.

"Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse," the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook's internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves..."

In public, Facebook has consistently played down the app's negative effects on teens, and hasn't made its research public or available to academics or lawmakers who have asked for it.

"The research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a congressional hearing in March 2021 when asked about children and mental health.

There are a whole host of reasons why it's a good idea to limit your kids' social media usage. That the social media companies themselves often seem unconcerned with your kids' well-being is chief among them.

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