Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha said social media is posing a threat to children’s health and called out parents for contributing to the crisis.
“That is laziness on the parents’ part, because [if] you give a kid a tablet or an iPhone, they can be buried in it for hours, and then you can go do whatever the hell you want,” Concha said on Fox News’s The Faulkner Focus Tuesday. “It will only lead to very, very bad things.”
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Concha’s criticisms come as the United Kingdom announced a social media ban for children under 16 on Monday. It’s set to take effect sometime next year.
“There’s no business for any phone to be in a classroom,” Concha said.
Concha said it gets worse when children transition into teenagers, and that the hours spent on social media go up as well.
Social media is “making us less social,” Concha said.
He mentioned social media is a leading factor in the mental health crisis. He said depression, anxiety, attention span deficits, behavioral problems, aggression, and hyperactivity are being found in conjunction with social media use.
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Concha also argued that social media is contributing to obesity rates
“One has to think that [children] not getting out, and they’re buried in their phones — kids are — is a big contributor to that. It’s just incredible that we almost have 1 in 4 children that are technically obese because, again, they’re not socializing with each other, they’re not playing the way they should, and as a result, we got a lot of kids that will be very, very unhealthy when they get older, not just mentally but physically,” Concha said.
