Who does not agree with a statement like this? It certainly tugs at the heartstrings, but what we often don’t hear is how many lives are lost or compromised due to what was deemed as a solution.
Last year the Teen Mental Health House Ad Hoc Committee was formed at the Arizona Legislature with this stated purpose:
The Ad Hoc Committee on Teen Mental Health, which will consist of members of the House of Representatives and of the community, is intended to research and review information regarding how substance abuse, depression and mental illness, bullying and social media, and other factors may affect mental health in youth and potential teen suicide. The committee shall work to identify potential solutions and make recommendations to public and private agencies with the goal of addressing teen mental health issues and improving access to mental health care.
Most of the time when governments choose committee members, it is so a pre-determined goal will be achieved. What the public sector continually lacks is the diligence to take a deep dive into issues and critically think about ramifications. Officeholders prefer politically expedient solutions, while education contractors benefit financially via lobbyists who peddle their wares.
The issues surrounding Arizona HB2635 are real and scary, whether one supports the bill or not. Representative Travis Grantham (R-LD14) was the Vice Chair of the Teen Mental Health Committee, and the personal stories he heard clearly moved him. He sponsored HB2635 which would allow local governing boards to provide a mental health app for teens to have on their phones simply for access to a suicide prevention line.
But high schools and colleges are already required by Arizona law to print a suicide hotline number on student IDs. While an app for quick access to a suicide hotline sounds lifesaving, there are long-term risks involved for a product like this that lacks proven results. According to a study conducted by Internet Safety Labs and published December 13, 2022, even apps customized for school districts are less safe compared to generic apps—as 96% of the apps recommended by school districts share personal information with third parties.
We know our phones are tracking and listening to us. Apps can be developed to pick up on keywords which may relate to a stressful situation or even just an argument a teen has with his or her parents. Apps are also programmed to pick up certain emojis. Schools could then be notified and intervene based on a narrative which has nothing to do with suicide. Meanwhile, the information the app gathered never goes away. Mental health information gleaned from an app may be a problem later in life when the child is applying for jobs or certain academic programs.
In addition, according to study by Internet Safety Labs, 61% of custom apps send information to Google, while 81% access location information. These apps synchronize with the student’s Chromebooks and other devices. This is especially unnerving in Arizona, which is a leading state for sex trafficking. On top of that, several Arizona school districts recognize that social media is contributing to youth mental health problems, and one is even suing Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. Why would our legislature support an app which leads students to these platforms?
Representative Grantham has been looking at a similar mental health app used in Utah. The idea started as a pilot program, collected data, and through the data it was deemed necessary to expand the program. Now that the data is documented, the proponents call it “evidence-based.”
Due to pushback, Representative Grantham proposed adding an amendment to provide “guardrails” for the mental health app. Will guardrails tell us who is on the other end of a suicide hotline? Like former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman’s QChat, parents are circumvented while minors are talking with strangers their parents know nothing about.
One of the mental health apps used in Utah is Bark, which has an LGBTQIA+ page. Bark also links students to the Trevor Project, which steers children to gender ideology. At the same time, the child’s data is recorded forever. That is concerning, especially since Bark advertises the CDC as one of its partners. Exactly what is the government doing with the information collected while the minor is tracked?
Children are suffering from a lack of personal interactions with parents, teachers, and friends. Sending them to an app—especially sinister ones like this—only exacerbates the problem. The Arizona Legislature should vote no on HB2635. Gathering data on children is an outright assault on them.
Peggy McClain is a concerned citizen who advocates for accountability in Arizona’s schools. You can follower her on Twitter here.
Do you know who is talking to your kids and what they are saying to them?
The mental health of children is one of the current hot topics in education. This is prompting a call for an army of social counselors, social workers, and child psychologists to be hired by school district administrations to address the issue.
Kids definitely appear to be more stressed now than they have been in the past. Some recent suicides by some of our students highlight the shocking and tragic consequences of this.
While hiring more mental health professionals in order to address the symptoms of student stress is one effort that is being pursued, the key question that still needs to be addressed is: what is the primary cause of this excessive stress?
At a recent conference on student mental health, I was able to ask several professionals this very question. All of them responded with the same answer: the influence of social media.
The Influence of Social Media
“Social Media Influencer” is now a lucrative profession. Professional influencers promote trends or products and can be highly compensated for their efforts. It is essentially a new advertising medium targeted at a young audience—including your kids.
But there is a darker side to social media influencing, particularly with cyberbullying or the promotion of lifestyle choices that run counter to parenting efforts. This can have a very harmful effect on impressionable young minds, sometimes with devastating consequences.
Many of these social media posts come with an overt or implied warning, “Don’t let your parents know,” which strips children of their primary protection against undesirable influences.
Some Social Media Channels
Tik Tok is a very popular social media site with wide public distribution that consists mostly of short videos, often recorded on a cell phone, that can entertain and amuse young minds. The intent is for a popular post to “go viral” and be shared by many people across the platform leading to an increase in the poster’s credibility as an influencer. But there are other postings that parents may find to be undesirable to have their children exposed to including drug and alcohol use, sexuality and sexual activity, and political extremism.
SnapChat is an app that is often used for small group text and video conversations between kids. The primary feature of this site is that messages are automatically deleted by the host server after a short period of time and can no longer be seen. This is supposed to protect someone from exposure of their malicious posts. The posts can only be preserved if someone takes a picture of the message, known as a “screenshot,” which can be saved on their phone or personal computer.
Many social media applications also have a feature that allows users to take conversations offline into private one-on-one exchanges through direct messages or texts. This is where a lot of cyberbullying occurs since it is generally out of the public spotlight.
Who Shouldn’t Be Talking to Your Kids?
Adolescents, who are often the instigators of malicious social media attacks that harm other kids, are not adults and have not yet developed the self-control necessary to avoid such transgressions. They are not fully aware of the consequences of their actions and often lash out without thinking. They need adult supervision.
Ill-intentioned adults, even some that could be considered as “predators,” find social media a useful way to communicate and mislead children into accepting narratives that normalize, enable, and encourage questionable behaviors. This process is also known as “grooming.”
There have also been reports of some educators using these social media channels to communicate directly to their students about their personal political and social opinions in order to circumvent restrictions that are imposed in the classrooms. Several of these educators have been exposed and removed from their positions.
Parents Need to Start Fighting Back
When it comes to social media, parental involvement is crucial. Parents need to be aware of who is talking to their kids and what they are saying.
The first step is to get on these social media platforms and monitor the conversations. Parents need to know what is being said to their kids and who is saying it.
The second step is to actively respond to objectionable content and discourage it. The argument that this somehow stifles “free speech” ignores the obvious fact that objecting to a public expressed opinion, particularly if it considered harmful to children, is also just as much of a free speech right. An army of concerned parents commenting on questionable posts should slow this down considerably.
Canceling the “Cancel Culture”
It can be said that “political correctness” has proceeded almost unchallenged in social media and in our classrooms. Any objection to the prevailing social narrative is often met with vigorous, and sometimes vicious, personal attacks on any courageous individuals who dares to speak up. The intent is to silence dissent and intimidate any reasonable opinions to the contrary.
This is where parents need to step up and brave the storm. They need to become active and support each other by pushing back on undesirable ideologies that are presented in social media. There are far more concerned parents out there than there are bullies and groomers. It’s time to go on offense. There should be no “safe space” for people that want to mislead your kids.
Kurt Rohrs is a candidate for the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board. You can find out more about his campaign here.
