 Tuesday, September 1, 2026 | | |
| | | | | BY MEG WINGERTER The Meta settlement with Colorado and 46 other states promises major changes to how teens experience Facebook and Instagram, though we’ll have to see how the company implements its commitments. The states will receive about $17 billion over nine years to spend on youth mental health. At the same time, Meta pledged to do a better job keeping kids off its platforms and preventing teens from spending hours scrolling when they need to be in school or sleeping. The reforms appear to address many of experts’ biggest concerns about social media, but we don’t yet know what fixes the company will come up with and whether teens will be able to easily circumvent them. And, of course, it won't do anything to prevent kids from getting sucked into TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube or other social media sites. | | | | Dr. Lisa DeCamp thought she might have a win-win idea that would improve health for kids with asthma while saving Medicaid money. She may never know if it would have worked after the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality ended her funding two years into a five-year project. | | | | | “These are not simple scrapes and bruises,” one Children’s Hospital doctor said. “We frequently see traumatic brain injuries … severe internal bleeding and organ damage.” | | | | | Social media platforms, as they currently exist, can harm youth mental health through showing users content that makes their existing vulnerabilities worse. | | | | | Patients taking the drug nearly doubled their survival time in a company study. | | | | | The doctors said they would face increased federal pressure, as well as the possibility of death threats from people who don’t agree with how they treated transgender children, if their identities were made public. | | | | | This is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history, with many people dying outside treatment centers. | | | | | What we're reading
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