The Digital Wellness Lab aims to mediate between TikTok and parents

As some states try to regulate children's social media use and TikTok emerges as a geopolitical chew toy, a new clearinghouse has emerged for mediating between tech companies and those concerned about their products' impact on kids: the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Young people live their lives on social media, and it's not going away, so parents and pediatricians need to learn to recognize when it becomes a problem, says pediatrician Michael Rich, the lab's founder.  At the same time, tech companies need to set appropriate guardrails, says Rich. He argues that unhealthy internet use is not an addiction, but rather a disorder he's dubbed Problematic Interactive Media Use — or PIMU — that indicates other underlying problems, including mood disorders and ADHD. Rich founded the Digital Wellness Lab in 2021 to look at the unknown health consequences of the surge in kids spending six-plus hours a day online. With sponsorship from major tech platforms — such as Twitch, Roblox, Snap, Discord, and TikTok — the Lab is trying to address the concerns of parents, doctors, and lawmakers without villainizing the companies involved. Heavy social media use has been linked to mental health issues in children — most notably, depression in teen girls — and there's a cottage industry of lawyers and treatment programs aiming to help desperate parents. However, social media isn't going away. "We have to learn to live with it, not point fingers at it and say, 'This is horrible — get rid of it,'" Rich says.