It's definitely negative. Owen, you said this earlier—the bullies can now be there at 3 a.m. on your phone, and that can be for parents or children. Also, on algorithms, once we start looking at certain things, our phones will now reinforce those beliefs for us over and over. If you're looking at sad or depressing things, that's what's going to start to feed to you all the time. I think algorithms are a big part of the problem.
I have no idea what laws look like around that, or how we regulate things like that, but if the federal government does, I would love for them to pay attention to that.
You were mentioning that families now need a dual income. You both need to be working full time. That's now more time away from children. Children are isolating, so now they're spending more time on their phones, where those bullies are, to try to get that connection. It really is a continuous, self-perpetuating problem.
One of the things I think about—which I know is getting a little away from your question of social media but would be really beneficial—is peer support for families. Peer support for families is an avenue where we can actually look at equipping parents and children to understand what's happening. We talked about mental health first aid earlier. If you teach that to a child and they come home and say, “Listen, I'm depressed,” that can be really traumatizing for a parent, but if you teach the parents what that means as well, you can start to build community and relationship within the homes.
I tried to talk fast.