Internal messages from Snapchat employees, a popular messaging app for photos and videos, have revealed that the company knowingly harmed teenagers and youth – its primary audience. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of the book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” recently published an article on Substack where he discussed how Snap Inc. receives thousands of messages about cases of “sextortion” – sexual extortion – every month (Source).
Haidt, along with a researcher, presented excerpts from internal reports, research, correspondence, and public statements where Snap employees and consultants acknowledged that Snapchat poses harm to minors. The revelations can be categorized into five main areas: fostering addiction and compulsive usage, facilitating access to drugs and weapons, enabling the spread of sexual violence among children, cases of coercion to intimate encounters, cyberbullying, and lack of action by the company in addressing dangers and age limit violations.
Just like in the case of TikTok, Haidt and Rush assert that Snapchat executives were fully aware of the magnitude of these issues but failed to take appropriate measures. For instance, the “Streaks” feature, which tracks the consecutive days users exchange photos, creates a false sense of obligation and closeness among adolescents. However, despite this, the app still only provides superficial communication without real contact or genuine interaction.
Many former high-ranking executives of tech giants, some of whom appeared in the documentary “The Social Dilemma,” choose not to allow their own children to use smartphones due to their firsthand knowledge of the risks users, especially young ones, face. If the creators of such platforms are cautious about their own children using them, it prompts the question of why regular parents should trust them.
The authors of the report emphasize the need for a serious discussion on digital addiction and the accountability of tech companies. As the number of lawsuits and shifts in public opinion increase, more people may start to consider the cost of constant digital presence.