I am really upset. As you know, I stay pretty neutral when writing TTT, but today I am taking a side. Yesterday my teenage son Chase showed me the Discover feature on Snapchat. If you are unaware, the Discover feature grabs content from a variety of sources — Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, CNN among many others and makes it accessible to anyone, including our kids.
More often than not, the stories include explicit sex and sexist messaging. Chase and I found the stories from Cosmopolitan especially offensive. But what makes me so mad is that there is no way to remove or block the Discover Story feature on the app.
Snapchat is supposed to be for 13 years old and over. The Apple store actually says 12 years old. But whatever the supposed age, the fact is Cosmopolitan and other content creators in Discover have tons of explicit material—much of it offensive for anyone to read, let alone kids.
So what to do? Well, last summer a 14-year-old boy and his mother filed a lawsuit against Snapchat because of the Discover feature. The suit accuses Snapchat of violating the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is suppose to help regulate explicit content on the Web. Not much seems to be happening with the lawsuit.
In addition to civil penalties, the lawsuit asks Snapchat to put in-app warnings about possible sexually explicit content. No word yet if any action has been taken.
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Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
Learn more about our Screen-Free Sleep campaign at the website!
Our movie made for parents and educators of younger kids
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
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I am really upset. As you know, I stay pretty neutral when writing TTT, but today I am taking a side. Yesterday my teenage son Chase showed me the Discover feature on Snapchat. If you are unaware, the Discover feature grabs content from a variety of sources — Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, CNN among many others and makes it accessible to anyone, including our kids.
More often than not, the stories include explicit sex and sexist messaging. Chase and I found the stories from Cosmopolitan especially offensive. But what makes me so mad is that there is no way to remove or block the Discover Story feature on the app.
Snapchat is supposed to be for 13 years old and over. The Apple store actually says 12 years old. But whatever the supposed age, the fact is Cosmopolitan and other content creators in Discover have tons of explicit material—much of it offensive for anyone to read, let alone kids.
So what to do? Well, last summer a 14-year-old boy and his mother filed a lawsuit against Snapchat because of the Discover feature. The suit accuses Snapchat of violating the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is suppose to help regulate explicit content on the Web. Not much seems to be happening with the lawsuit.
In addition to civil penalties, the lawsuit asks Snapchat to put in-app warnings about possible sexually explicit content. No word yet if any action has been taken.
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I am really upset. As you know, I stay pretty neutral when writing TTT, but today I am taking a side. Yesterday my teenage son Chase showed me the Discover feature on Snapchat. If you are unaware, the Discover feature grabs content from a variety of sources — Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, CNN among many others and makes it accessible to anyone, including our kids.
More often than not, the stories include explicit sex and sexist messaging. Chase and I found the stories from Cosmopolitan especially offensive. But what makes me so mad is that there is no way to remove or block the Discover Story feature on the app.
Snapchat is supposed to be for 13 years old and over. The Apple store actually says 12 years old. But whatever the supposed age, the fact is Cosmopolitan and other content creators in Discover have tons of explicit material—much of it offensive for anyone to read, let alone kids.
So what to do? Well, last summer a 14-year-old boy and his mother filed a lawsuit against Snapchat because of the Discover feature. The suit accuses Snapchat of violating the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is suppose to help regulate explicit content on the Web. Not much seems to be happening with the lawsuit.
In addition to civil penalties, the lawsuit asks Snapchat to put in-app warnings about possible sexually explicit content. No word yet if any action has been taken.
A Los Angeles jury has found Meta and YouTube liable for designing platforms that addicted a child and harmed her mental health, the first verdict of its kind. The case shifted the legal debate away from free speech and Section 230 protections toward platform design and its impact on young users. This is being called social media's "Big Tobacco moment," and it is one worth explaining to the kids in your life.
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Jared Cooney Horvath argues that the common defense of classroom technology — “there’s no definitive evidence of harm” — sets an unrealistic standard. Because ed tech evolves rapidly, product-specific causal trials are often impossible and ethically problematic. Instead, he points to converging evidence. In Utah, long-rising achievement scores reversed after digital tools became central in 2014, a pattern echoed in broader national and international data, raising concerns about large-scale tech adoption without clear evidence of benefit.
READ MORE >
Instagram’s new Teen Accounts are being promoted as safer for kids, but recent nationally representative data tells a more complicated story. This post invites families to take a research-based quiz together and have a calm, curiosity-driven conversation about what teens are actually experiencing on the platform — and what that means for trust, safety, and screen time.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
