FTC Plans to Address Impact of Internet on Children’s Mental Health

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will seek to add child psychologists to its staff to advise its efforts on regulate the Internet. Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said the FTC plans to add a psychologist to its staff by next fall, if not sooner, and expressed embarrassment that it had not previously focused on the impact of media about children.

The FTC is currently unable to adequately review claims that the Internet causes mental health problems in children because the commission does not have full-time psychology experts on staff, the FTC said. Bedoya. The record Monday. He says FTC Chair Lina Khan is on board with the plan and is part of a broader effort to hold media accountable for the effect it has on children and teens.

Our plan is to hire one or more child psychologists to help us assess the mental health impacts of what children and youth do online, said FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar. CNBC Monday. We are currently exploring next steps, including how many people to hire and when.

The FTC received research claiming that Internet causes depressive symptoms in children, but Bedoya says he doesn’t have the expertise to determine whether the child is just sad or whether there is a correlation between Internet use and mental health problems.

Those hired would most likely be psychologists or social psychologists who could research children’s symptoms rather than assess them in a clinical setting, according to Bedoya. He says he hopes to increase the number of psychologists on staff, but first he needs to meet with experts and explore different setups before making a hiring decision.

What we want in this first tranche of experts is what some call psychological scientists and what others call social psychologists, Bedoya told The Record. These are people who conduct research and evaluate research to get an idea of ​​the effects of certain behaviors at the population level. We want people who conduct econometric studies and peer-reviewed research to have a sense of the big trends.

Bedoya’s comments come after his release prepared remarks in February, saying the FTC needed in-house psychologists to help evaluate all allegations mental health harms in children. He says it’s important to do more to protect young people and understand the difference between something that should raise a red flag with the FTC and a child’s existing emotional and mental health.

…There’s a difference between an emotional teenager and a teenager with depression, Bedoya said. There is a difference between a nervous child and an anxious child. There is a difference between a child who is depressed and a child who is contemplating suicide. But this is where it gets difficult. Because right now, if we want someone to help us understand this difference, we have to go through the process of hiring external experts.