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Casey Newton says past warnings from researchers and activists around the potential dangers of children using social networks resonated with him emotionally. “It seems logical that what many people experience as a kind of icky feeling after too much scrolling manifests as something much more serious in others — particularly in young people.”
This has been brought into sharp focus with the US Surgeon General issuing an advisory on social media and youth mental health. Vivek Murthy and his team synthesized more than a decade of research into the risks posed by social networks, and concluded that the potential for harm is significant.
He wrote: “Our children have become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment. It is critical that independent researchers and technology companies work together to rapidly advance our understanding of the impact of social media on children and adolescents.” If bankrupt media and broken democracy aren’t enough, maybe saving kids’ mental health will get people to pay attention?
OK here’s some good news, at least if you are a podcaster. New research from Acast says that marketers who have spent on multiple podcast campaigns say podcasts deliver a high return on ad spend. More than two-thirds (67%) of US marketers said that for every dollar spent on podcasts they see a $2 to $6 return. No wonder 68% of US marketers said that their second podcast advertising campaign had a higher budget than their first.
And talking of marketing, Jakub Parusinski of the Kyiv Independent and The Fix says that rebuilding trust in the media is as much a marketing problem as a problem of editorial mission. Speaking at Newsrewired, he said grandiose slogans about protecting “the truth” or “democracy” aren’t enough; to keep growing, you must focus on relevance, value and personalisation.
Press Gazette is reporting that the FT’s cut-price antidote to the ‘doom scroll’, FT Edit, has had 140,000 downloads since March. The app, offering readers just eight articles a day, is also attracting readers outside the Financial Times’ traditional audience. FT Edit editor Malcolm Moore told Press Gazette it has done particularly well in the US and has even spurred the Financial Times to start dabbling in influencer marketing… ????
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