Political Quotes

“I rise today to discuss an epidemic that is affecting our Nation's youth, a crisis each and every parent should be concerned about and one that so many parents I know already are. Our kids' worsening mental health is an emergency, and it is an emergency clearly and undeniably linked to social media. Emergency room visits among adolescents for anxiety, mood disorders, and self-harm have all risen dramatically in the years since social media apps exploded onto the scene. Over that same time period and during the second decade of this century, rates of depression amongst teenagers more than doubled. By 2019, 20 percent of teenagers agreed with the notion that ``life often feels meaningless''--almost a 100-percent increase from a decade earlier. According to the CDC, in 2021, and buckle up for this, one in three high school--young women said she actually considered death by suicide; 25 percent of teenage girls made a plan to do so; 9 percent of high schoolers and 13 percent of teenage girls actually attempted death by suicide. As a mom, that is beyond horrifying. I worry for my own kids. I worry for their friends. And as a Senator, I worry about the future of the next generation of Americans. To make matters worse, social media companies know the harm their platforms create. Instagram's parent company, Meta, conducted internal research that showed that one-third of teenage girls who use the app report: It makes them feel worse, but they cannot stop.…”