We all want good news — contrary to mainstream news, which focuses on all that is going wrong, we humans want and need a healthy dose of daily good news, right? I bet you agree, and thank you for reading this blog, which is focused on good news (including news about love).

A week ago, I was on a stage, on a panel, in front of many Attorneys General at their yearly national conference, and I said these words: “I am optimistic.”

The central focus of the conference was youth mental health in our digital age, and my panel was titled Youth Under The Influence, which focused on substance use issues in light of all the unbelievable and illegal marketing reaching young people today online.

The next thing I said to the Attorneys General (yes, that's the correct plural) was that I see many positive changes emerging in response to the teen mental health emergency and that it was sad that it took a crisis, but that is often the case.

All too often, that’s how we operate as a nation: only reacting when faced with a crisis. It reminds me of my friend Sheri Fink’s work, which has helped hospitals better prepare for emergencies like natural disasters. In her book Five Days at Memorial, she highlights how Hurricane Katrina exposed the healthcare system’s lack of readiness for such a disaster.

Good news is what today is about — and I am here to say that I’m optimistic that we are at a watershed moment. Many things have and are happening that make me feel we can turn the tide of youth wellness.

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Let me state three good news things here:

1. Parents are now coming together in a significant way to delay giving their children smartphones and allow access to social media.

Parent groups are forming worldwide to support this movement, including one long-standing initiative that has gathered tens of thousands of pledges from parents to "Wait Until 8th" grade before giving their kids smartphones and to delay social media for as long as possible.

As Jonathan Haidt has effectively highlighted, this is a "collective action" issue. If more kids are kept off social media until they’re older, it reduces the likelihood that any child will feel left out for not having it.

It was such fun interviewing parents in places like Times Square in New York City and my neighbors about their plans when to give smartphones and social media. 

Here is a clip from Screenagers: Elementary School Age Edition that we just released.  

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2. The Attorneys General's (AGs') lawsuit against Meta is a game changer

Less than a year ago 44 state Attorneys General filed a major lawsuit against Meta. A central component of the lawsuit is that Meta had internal knowledge of teen mental health problems related to their platforms, and yet they misled consumers about this. In addition the lawsuit accuses Meta of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) by failing to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting children's data.

The lawsuit gave the AGs subpoena powers so that they were able to gather thousands of internal documents which they then filed as a 2,000 page document. 

Through this process, we now know about many egregious things happening in Meta, and their lack of response to them.

The brilliant thinker and Facebook whistleblower, Francis Haugen, spoke on the Your Undivided Attention podcast about the documents filed by the AGs and here I share a quote from that podcast. (BTW, Haugen brought many key documents to light in Sept 2021 when she did the whistleblowing, but now there is far more data.)

Francis Haugen: “Part of why the situation with kids is so bad is as the filings from the AGs show, Facebook under invested specifically in kids' experiences and in Instagram, because that's where the kids were. And I want to be fully honest, advocating for kids was not my core issue when I came forward. It hasn't been for the last two years. And when I read the AG filings, I felt like I got radicalized because I had no clue how bad it was. And I'm the person who's known as the person who understands Facebook the best."

At the three-day AG event, I learned about many change-making lawsuits and important laws being considered and enacted. This is all super important for bringing about the changes that are needed. 

3. LOVE — (Did you jump right to this part to read first because you love it when something is written about love? — I am with you on that!)

While it is 100% true that a major shakedown in the tech world is needed for the sake of our children, I want to give a loving shout out to the fact that tech can, when we use it as such, be an unstoppable agent to spread love.

It lets us share love with our kids via written messages, voice messages, videos, and photos — all the ways we can let them know all the ways we love them and think they are incredibly capable and wonderful people.

When used in a balanced way, tech lets us spread and receive love in all sorts of ways. What a wonderful discussion to have with your kids during a Tech Talk Tuesday. 

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I end with an inspiring quote that a woman I know has as her email signature.

“Love is our greatest untapped resource.”

And that is it for this week’s blog.

With love,  Delaney

Questions to get the conversation going:  (even if you have kids with smartphones and social media, the questions below are still relevant,— afterall, what norm do they want to see when they are adults and will be faced with the issues we adults are now faced with.)

1. Have you heard of parents talking about delaying smartphones, as a community, until kids are older, such as at the start of high school?
2. Have you heard of parents talking about delaying social media apps, as a community, until kids are older, such as at the start age 16?
3. What do we think about the fact that Meta specifically cut funding to departments tasked with working for youth safety on Instagram, where teens are, compared to Facebook where adults use more?
4. What ways have you used tech recently as a tool for boosting love?

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