Alyssa Mullins 0:00
Hi, everyone. I’m Alyssa!
Preston Snyder 0:02
I’m Preston!
Alyssa Mullins 0:03
And this is your weekly social.
So Preston, I don’t know if you remember, but I did this talk with Adam a couple weeks ago, and it was about Instagram for kids.
Preston Snyder 0:16
Instagram for kids?
Alyssa Mullins 0:17
Instagram for kids. Exactly.
Preston Snyder 0:18
Yeah
Alyssa Mullins 0:19
Yeah, yeah, that’s not happening anymore.
Preston Snyder 0:22
More like, “No Instagram for kids!”
Alyssa Mullins 0:24
No more Instagram for kids, that has been put on a pretty big pause, for quite a few reasons. Actually, one of them is just the overall concern of the safety and security of the kids that’ll be using that platform. And just making sure that there are parents who are comfortable with it. And that, you know, everything that goes into creating this platform as a safe spot for children, is actually going to be what it set out to be. And that’s kind of the very broad general explanation of it all. But there were a couple other things, Preston, if you want to go ahead and explain that.
Preston Snyder 1:02
Yeah, it’s been very interesting. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram announced this project, saying, “We’re very excited for it, we want a place where kids, specifically ages 10 to 12, can come hang out, and be safe, be supervised, like a really a version of Instagram with a whole bunch of padlocks on it for safety, security and monitoring the community out of concerns for cyber bullying. However, even though that sentiment he tried to get across just about every organization that could was like, “What if you just didn’t encourage kids to be on Instagram at all?” In particular, the really weird thing that people in Congress pointed out was Facebook internally, as a whole had just conducted a study about the effects of Instagram on people, and the people most negatively affected were teenagers. And this thing’s for reaction to cyber bullying and suicidal ideation in teenage girls, who are absolutely the most likely to act do or be negatively affected. And so a bunch of people, especially in Congress said, “You should stop this now.”
Alyssa Mullins 2:24
And we have touched on this topic in a couple other of our videos that we’ve done for Weekly Social. Social Media is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a platform where, you know, us as advertisers, we can promote brands, we can get some brand awareness going on, we can help show people the products and just things and services that they may want or need or are looking for. But then as a personal use as well. It’s something where you can kind of just connect with friends that maybe aren’t in the same state as you.
Preston Snyder 3:01
There’s also a huge dark side, like cyber bullying is absolutely real, it’s a thing that’s kind of generally gotten worse as time has gone by with every new platform, and identity and age verification being a “Yeah, that’s fine!” It’s to the point where, “Okay, great- I’m on Twitter, I’m 16. And I’m being harassed by a 42 year old man who thinks I’m wrong. Why?” Or even your peers; it can get messy, too.
Alyssa Mullins 3:34
And, you know, teenagers and just kids younger than that, they can be very impressionable. They learn a lot about the world in ways that they should and shouldn’t at the same time. And so, you know, like we were kind of talking about a couple weeks ago, like I was mentioning with Adam, it’s both good and bad. Instagram for kids could and also could not be a good and bad place, the platform would be ad free. So good for them. A little different for us. But also, you have that space, where now there’s a bunch of I believe it’s 10-12 year olds, within that age range on the platform, and they can be kind of, you know, mean to each other. That takes the intention of Instagram for kids being this good, positive, family friendly platform and then changing it just to a younger demographic that’s almost the same as Instagram now…
Preston Snyder 4:36
Let’s take a confined space where we let people freely talk to each other. And the people we’re letting talk to each other are the people all about to enter puberty!
Alyssa Mullins 4:49
So there are a bunch of different things happening- right now it’s on a pause.
Preston Snyder 4:53
What happens next?
Alyssa Mullins 4:54
What happens next is, well one, we just kind of wait and monitor and see what’s going to happen next? Is Instagram for kids gonna keep on going after maybe things calm down and they get some evidence to support it? We don’t know.
Preston Snyder 5:10
We know Congress has said, cancel it. “Great, you put it on pause, the greatest thing you could do is scrap the project. Stop trying to bring kids to your platform.” Where’s the line between you creating a need instead of responding to one? And in the end is a attention and thus a money thing for you? It’s a very scathing response.
Alyssa Mullins 5:38
And so we’ll keep monitoring, there maybe another Instagram for kids Weekly Social coming up in the next few weeks, we don’t know. We’ll keep watching and keep an eye out and just see what’s going on. But for now, it’s on a pause. There are other kid friendly platforms that you can use. There’s YouTube for kids…
Preston Snyder 5:57
There’s Facebook for kids, which has its own level of scandal.
Alyssa Mullins 6:03
But there are other kid friendly things that are available out there, which is another argument as to why we don’t need an Instagram for kids. And so we’ll keep looking at that and monitoring.
Preston Snyder 6:17
But for now, Instagram for kids, in the trash!
Alyssa Mullins 6:23
And on that note, that’s all we have time for for today. Thank you guys so much for watching. Don’t forget to like, hit the bell, comment, subscribe!
Preston Snyder 6:37
Let us know in the comments- Instagram for kids. Yes? No?
Alyssa Mullins 6:41
Thumbs up, thumbs down in the comments, thumbs up the video. You know how it goes! And follow us on our various social media accounts. We’re on Instagram, we’re on TikTok, Facebook, we’re on YouTube. Here we are.
Preston Snyder 6:56
We’ll see you in the next.
Alyssa Mullins 6:59
See you guys later
