Child Psych Podcast Episode #138

[Tammy Schamuhn] Hello everyone, and welcome to the Child Psych Podcast. My name is Tammy Schamuhn, and I am the co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology. I’m a registered child psychologist, play therapist, and a mom to three amazing kids.

Today we have with us Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill, who are both producers and directors of this incredible documentary called Can’t Look Away that exposes the dark side of social media and its devastating impact on young users. As we go into this, we would love your support for the Child Psych podcast, so please don’t forget to rate and review this podcast on your preferred podcast provider platform. That’s a lot of P’s there, but that helps us so much in terms of getting this information out there.

 

So let’s get into this. We have Matthew and Perri here, and they have really taken us all on a journey. I watched this documentary last week—the week before last—and they really take viewers inside this high-stakes legal battle to hold tech companies accountable for the harm caused by their negligence and dangerous algorithms. This film follows social media victims and a law center fighting for justice for families whose children suffered tragic consequences linked to social media use. As families seek justice, Can’t Look Away underscores the urgent need for industry reform and serves both as a wake-up call about the dangers of social media and a call to take action to protect future generations.

Welcome, and thank you for your work on this topic that is so hot right now. I think for parents—I have three kids—I just want to hear all about your journey and what inspired you. So I don’t know who wants to go first here, but how did this start?

[Perri Peltz] First of all, Tammy, thank you so much for having us on this program. Your work is so important, and this topic we feel is really important.

The question of how this began goes back about two and a half years ago—maybe almost three years ago. Let’s just say it goes back a long time. We were in conversations with Bloomberg and looking at some different stories that they were working on that were possible stories that could become documentaries. This one really starts with the amazing investigative reporting of their reporter, Olivia Carville. Olivia has done some extraordinary work in this space. Matt and I read all of her reporting and met with Olivia on several occasions and thought, “This needs to be told. This needs to get out far and wide because parents, people who care for children, doctors, nurses, school teachers—everyone who touches the life of a child—needs to be aware of what’s happening in the big tech social media space.”

[Tammy] Yeah, and I mean, I’ve talked to our viewers about this myself. My kids are 17, 11, and 8, and none of my kids have social media. I’m the worst mom in the world sometimes—at least my 17-year-old thinks so. I think she’s used to it now, but when she was 14, I was definitely the worst mom.

There were things that scared me about who was online, I think more than this. This documentary was a different take, especially when we talk about Snapchat, which we will, because that was terrifying—learning about that particular algorithm and the app there, or rather, the reasons sometimes people are on there and how kids get victimized.

But the biggest thing for me that I took from this is just looking at how money is coming before kids’ mental health. Like you mentioned right at the beginning of your documentary: in 2022, social media companies made an estimated $11 billion advertising to minors. To minors—that’s just minors. Of course they want to keep their eyeballs on these apps. That’s a lot of product moving, right? That’s a lot of money in their pocket.

The Wild West of Social Media vs. Regulated Television

[Matthew O’Neill] I think it’s an enormous amount of money. One of the things that you learn in the documentary—and you also hear from various whistleblowers from different companies—is that children are targeted as an audience. That’s true for Saturday morning television cartoons too when we were kids, but those Saturday morning television cartoons were subject to the scrutiny of the FCC and subject to a great deal of regulation. The social media landscape remains the absolute Wild West.

I think as parents—I’m a parent to a 13-year-old and an almost 10-year-old—if we have social media accounts, we see very different things than what these young people are seeing, and things that are far more benign. When Perri and I started this film, when we started looking closely at this, we had that vague sense that social media was bad. We thought that it could lead to internet addiction or distraction or cyberbullying. Those things had all been in the zeitgeist.

We didn’t realize that these algorithms were—to use the title of the film—making it so that these kids can’t look away. We’re talking about algorithms that are shaping their brains in ways that they can’t turn away from the screen. These are engagement machines that tap into their emotions—not necessarily even their interests—and take them on these journeys that they can’t look away from.

How Algorithms Really Work: Time-Based, Not Search-Based

[Tammy] Well, yeah, and you mentioned—here in my notes I’m looking—it says the algorithm is not based on what you search. It’s based on what you spend time on. Like if you spend a couple of seconds watching a video that happens to pop up in your feed… I just think of something really silly—I don’t know, my husband sent me a recipe or something like a month ago to look at. Now for the last several weeks, I get all these recipes sent to me. I don’t cook—that’s the ironic thing. But I spent 20 seconds looking at some air fryer thing he sent me, and that’s all I’m getting now, and I’m not interested in that. I don’t want to be in the kitchen cooking. He’s a great cook.

But I think that’s part of the point too. We can talk to kids about what to search and how that follows you and then you’ll get shown these things. But that’s actually not how it’s working most of the time. The videos that they start to consume show them more and more of the same content. We know the brain pays attention to negative information five times more than positive information.

So I know you kind of start the documentary talking about kids who have gone down a road where they’re looking at self-strangulation videos. The question is, they might not have even Googled that, but if it got shown to them because they’re feeling depressed or they’re having suicidal thoughts, then another kid who had posted something gets shown. When they spend time on it, then they’re being fed that information.

How Algorithms Hijack Developing Brains

[Perri Peltz] You know, it’s such a good point, and thus the title of the film, Can’t Look Away. Your child isn’t seeing what they necessarily asked to see. They’re being sent the material that they can’t look away from. Of course, I don’t have to tell you—you’re a psychologist—you know that these platforms are hijacking the very parts of the brain that are still under construction for the young people in our world: impulse control, identity, emotional regulation.

[Tammy Schamuhn] Absolutely. You’re right. It’s hijacking a lot of their executive functioning. I mean, I think social media, even for adults, is highly addictive that way. I could watch silly cat videos until the cows come home and lose an hour. And my brain is fully developed.

[Matthew O’Neill] I think we’ve all seen our peers at different times lose themselves in whether it’s on X or TikTok or Instagram—adults go down into a distraction spiral. That’s something when we think about solutions and steps forward that’s really important.

One of the parents who is featured in the film, Amy Neville, who tragically lost her son Alexander to a fake pill that was laced with fentanyl that he was sold by a drug dealer who encountered him on Snapchat—she makes the point that… Sorry, I just said in telling Amy’s story, I forgot what my original point was. What was your question, Tammy?

[Tammy] We were just going down those lines. We were talking about hijacking the brain essentially and looking at kids.

[Matthew O’Neill] Right, you talk about the conversation—that’s what she makes the point about: that you have to have conversations about this with your children if you’re going to understand it and they’re going to understand it. She also makes the point that we as adults need to model good behavior when it comes to social media and our phones and our computers and our electronic devices, because young people see what their caring adults do, and that sets the tone for what they then do.

[Tammy] Absolutely. I mean, otherwise it becomes “do as I say, not as I do,” right?

[Perri Peltz] Right. And remember, Tammy, these are really, really powerful algorithms, and they can teach your child really quickly. That’s what’s really scary, because they’re able to see what a child is pausing on, what a child is responding to, and that just continues to feed the algorithm.

[Tammy] Yeah, absolutely. I know when we look at another stat here that’s interesting to me: 95% of teens are using social media, and one in three are using it almost constantly. That was lovely to see. Was it Arturo Bejar?

[Matthew O’Neill] Arturo. Arturo Bejar.

[Tammy] He was the Facebook director of engineering. Oh my gosh, I butchered that. I wrote down “the former Facebook director of engineering from 2009 to 2015.” He was designing child safety tools and he ran into this data—this study that was looking at how teens were harmed by social media. In this study, over a seven-day period, one in eight kids had unwanted sexual advances made against them online. And one in five said they felt worse about themselves simply from being on social media. In that small timeframe.

When this study was brought up, I believe it was Meta, there was no response. He’s saying this is hurting teens, and it just seems to have been brushed aside for the longest time.

[Matthew O’Neill] The whistleblowers who have come out from the various companies that you see in the film, but also have testified in Congress more recently, have some staggering inside information that shows how these companies are thinking about children. I think the quote in one of the Meta documents from Frances Haugen was something like “tweens are herd animals.” This is, as is discussed in the film, similar to what the big tobacco companies were doing 30 years ago in terms of targeting young people to become lifelong clients—lifelong, in both cases, really addicts.

Just like with tobacco or with opioids, the social media companies are targeting young people and using the language of “bad kids” or “bad parents,” trying to put the responsibility on the family, on the parent, instead of where many people think it should be—which is on the product and on the company for what they’re giving to our children and what they’re targeting our children with.

[Tammy] Yeah, I read that article you referenced when I saw the documentary, and they also use the words “addicts narrative.” They know they’re addicted. I know you mentioned even in the documentary that 50% of these kids are having withdrawal symptoms from being on screens, from social media. We know lots of things can cause dependency and addiction, right? It can be pornography, it can be opioids, it can be alcohol, it can be screens. We know it works on the same pathways in the brain, and kids can have that.

When people assume it’s almost like pop psychology—”Oh, they’re addicted”—we’re like, “No, it is physiologically addictive with the dopamine.” We know this. I know there’s one study that’s shown that social media and screens for kids is just as addictive as cocaine and nicotine.

The Science Behind Social Media Addiction

[Perri Peltz] Yeah, there’s that. I think, Tammy, the point that you’re making is really well taken. These are the same brain pathways. If you put people—a child, a grown-up—into an MRI machine and you take a look at their brain, you’re going to see those pathways light up, whether it’s opioids or tobacco or screens. It is the same pathway.

Unfortunately, a lot of these platforms are using neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc., to program these because what’s being prioritized is not safety—it’s engagement. It’s keeping your child on as long as possible. That is a public health crisis, and that’s what we have to recognize.

[Tammy] Well, I think what was the most shocking part of this documentary for me—and that’s why everyone needs to watch this—is that there are 1,865 open cases for wrongful death suits. Is that the U.S., or where does that stat come from?

[Matthew O’Neill] That’s actually, I believe at that point in time, that was the number of wrongful death suits that just the Social Media Victims Law Center has. So there are many, many more suits. Again, those are allegations, but the cases you see in Can’t Look Away—when you watch this film—they are not outliers. This is something that’s happening to children now.

With the Snapchat case in California, I think they cut it off at 83 families that are party to that particular suit. But there are so many more who have the same claims or similar claims that are coming up. So this is, to use Perri’s phrase, a public health crisis. It’s a public health crisis for our children. It’s also all new. We didn’t grow up—our parents didn’t grow up—with social media, didn’t grow up with this particular patterning on our brains. So it’s not something that we can relate to.

My parents’ experiences as children were much more similar to mine. I’m in my mid-40s; my parents are in their 70s. They were dealing with relatively similar things. This is moving at warp speed for the kids who are using social media.

[Tammy] Here was the aha moment that I had because I don’t have Snapchat, and my kids don’t have Snapchat, so I’m not seeing Snapchat. When I think of the fentanyl crisis, whether you’re in Canada or the U.S., I looked at when that app became popular and then I looked at these suits. Maybe you guys can explain to our listeners what we’re talking about—how Snapchat has been used to fuel this crisis in North America. That blew my mind because I had no idea, and then I felt really silly for not knowing this. So can you explain to our listeners a little bit about what is happening, how drug dealers are utilizing Snapchat? Because I think parents need to know this.

[Matthew O’Neill] Parents need to understand that Snapchat is essentially a disappearing messaging app. So whether it is a drug menu or it is a sexually explicit picture, these are all things that are designed to disappear after they’re sent. That’s why it’s “gone in a snap.” If you’re a drug dealer, it’s nice to have the evidence of your transaction and your solicitation of young people disappear automatically. That’s part of the appeal for the Snap app to people who are trying to deal drugs to minors, to children.

Also, because they can look at what’s happening in people’s Snap feeds—so, “your dog died. I have something that can make you feel better”—and then they’re sending them a drug menu. We’ve done screenings with young people, and this is why we think it’s interesting for parents to screen this film with their children, or maybe screen it by themselves and then invite their children to screen it with them if they think it’s important.

All of the teenagers in the room raised their hand when asked if they had been sent drug menus on social media. All of them. Almost all of them raised their hands when they were asked if they were sent sexually explicit photographs. To go back to a point we made earlier, what teenagers and children are seeing on these social media apps is so radically different than what adults are seeing.

Going back to the fentanyl crisis, the rise in fentanyl—these kids, in case after case… Kids are going to experiment. Kids are going to use drugs. When I was 16 years old, if I wanted to make a purchase of an illegal drug, it was pretty darn complicated. There were lots of barriers to that, whether it was to meet the drug dealer, have a friend of a friend, go to the park, risk running into the police.

As one of the parents in the film points out, Amy Neville: Snapchat brings the drug dealers into your kid’s bedroom. This is taking the most dangerous street in the toughest neighborhood and bringing it into a place where you as a parent probably think that your kid is safe.

[Tammy] Absolutely. It doesn’t mean that your child even knows what they’re taking. These were some of the cases that you looked at. The kids were trying to get a different kind of pill—it wasn’t fentanyl. They thought it was like Percocet or something, and then it turns out you just don’t know what they’re going to ingest.

I think of a conversation I had with my mom when I was a teenager that I think needs to be had in a different way now. One time I remember as a teenager—being 16—some friends and I smoked some pot or something, and it was laced, and I got so sick. That was a horrible experience. My mom said, “You just don’t know what is in it. You don’t know what this is when you buy it from someone.” I learned that the hard way as a teenager. But now we’re looking at something—a totally different grade of drug—that one dose can kill a child.

[Matthew O’Neill] There’s no question our drug supply in this country is contaminated with fentanyl. No question about it. Tammy, it’s even more complex than even a drug dealer sort of coming into your home through a child’s phone. What happens on Snapchat—or what can happen on Snapchat—is you do these “Quick Add” features. Young people can be competitive with each other. “Tammy, you have 500 friends? I want 500 friends.” So Snap offers me this Quick Add, and I accept all of these friends.

What we have found, what the experts that we have followed have shared with us, is that within 24 hours, it’s quite possible that your child’s feed has drug dealers and, for young girls, sexual predators in that Quick Add mix. But then what can happen is it’s not just that a drug dealer is going to come and present what they have to your child. That does happen, but it can be even more subtle than that.

You say in your friend group, “My dog died.” People say, “Tammy, I’m so sorry. That’s just so sad,” and blah, blah, blah. Then somebody who you don’t know, but it says that they’re a friend of so-and-so’s, says, “You know what? I have something that’s going to make you feel better.” So it’s not just that the drug dealer is coming into your home. The drug dealer can come into your child’s life in lots of different ways, and that is much more complicated.

What Can Parents Do?

[Tammy] Yeah, absolutely. When you created this documentary, obviously it was partially to bring awareness that there are whistleblowers and they are willing to take action against these companies. If a parent is listening and they wonder, “How can I help?” What would you tell them? I mean, watch the documentary, be aware of it, talk to your kids is what I’m hearing, watch the film with them. Education is going to be really important if your kids are going to have these apps. What else would you say to these parents? What do we do?

[Perri Peltz] So it’s a great question. Matt and I spoke a lot about this because what we don’t want to do is say to parents, “Watch this film,” scare them, and then not give solid, concrete, actionable items that you can do to help keep your children or your loved ones safe. It’s complicated because, as Matt mentioned earlier, we don’t want this to be parent blaming. We talked about it—this isn’t something that parents can fix. These are very complex apps and very complex programs. Your child will find a device if they want to. That is going to happen.

But what can be done without a doubt is conversation. I think for adults, sometimes it can be daunting to have those conversations with a kid because these kids know the digital world so much better than we ever can. They are digital natives in some instances. But having a conversation, even if you feel like you can’t keep up with that conversation, is really important. And saying to your child so that it is heard loud and clear: “If you walk into a problem, if you are experiencing something that doesn’t feel right, if you are being threatened, you must come to me.” Because we know that can be the difference between life and death.

[Matthew O’Neill] And also, in terms of what we were thinking about with this film and making sure there are resources—if you go to jolt.film, which is where the film is located right now, that’s jolt.film—there’s a resource guide.

[Tammy] Yeah, the link, everyone—it’ll be in the description of the podcast. So people will go there and watch.

[Matthew O’Neill] Great. But the important part—what I was going to say is that it’s there. There’s an education guide, there’s a conversation guide, there are resources that point you both from the Jolt page and from the Bloomberg landing page, where you can use those resources to shape a conversation with your child, shape a conversation with your community group. There are also other organizations to reach out to that can go into the specifics of what you might be dealing with in your own life, whether it’s social media addiction or drug dealing on social media or any number of different things. Because the truth is, the problems on social media are myriad. It could be sextortion, it could be drug dealing, it could be all sorts of different things. So the solutions and conversations are also myriad, and there’s an education guide that is on the website.

[Tammy] That’s wonderful. I’m so glad you guys are willing to include that. I didn’t know that. I had watched the documentary through the link you gave me with the password. We’re going to stay online and do some bonus content, but for all of you who are listening, I just wanted to let you know that this is something every parent needs to watch, especially those with teens right now—teens and tweens—because there are things going on under the water here that are over our heads as parents. We weren’t exposed to this in the same way.

Yes, of course there were drug deals and there were substances when I was a teen, but there were barriers. It was difficult to get our hands on these things. And even then, the types of substances—it’s taken on a whole new level. The best thing we can do as parents is arm ourselves with the correct information. You’re not alone. Other parents are struggling with this too. But we don’t want our kids to become a statistic. That’s the biggest piece I took from this—like, no, I don’t want my child to be one of these wrongful death suits. I don’t want that for my kids.

So we just have to educate and discuss and keep the dialogue open and recommend this to other parents. This is how we get this information out. So go to jolt.film and take a look. Everyone, just go to the description of this episode and you’ll see a link to it there. So thank you both so much.

[Perri Peltz] And Tammy, may we say thank you. Thank you for the important work that you are doing. At the end of the day, this is about communicating and making families, parents, teachers, grandparents aware of a problem that too often they don’t know exists. So thank you for your work, for using your background to communicate this important public health matter.

[Tammy] Beautiful, thank you.