S21·E97 Triggered: Is Social Media Pushing Girls to Self-Harm?

Cece is a high school senior who says she became addicted to social media when she was 12 years old. She claims Instagram algorithms took her down a dark rabbit hole, which led to an eating disorder. Last year, Cece and her mother, Candace, filed a lawsuit against Meta, Instagram’s parent company, accusing it of “causing and contributing to a growing mental health crisis among children and teens.” They say the big social media companies have not been held accountable for what many experts warn is a connection between heavy social media use and mental health issues in children. Another mother, Linda, claims social media content delivered to her 23-year-old daughter through algorithms led to her eating disorder. And meet Ian, a father whose 14-year-old daughter’s 2017 death was recently ruled a suicide resulting from “depression and the negative effects of online content.”