According to a Harvard research, social media corporations earned USD 11 billion in US ad income from minors

According to research released on Wednesday by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, social media corporations generated over $11 billion in advertising income from children in the United States last year.

The results, according to the researchers, demonstrate the need of government control of social media since the businesses that profit from minors using their platforms have not been able to effectively exercise self-regulation. They point out that these rules, together with more openness from internet firms, may lessen the negative effects on young people’s mental health and reduce potentially dangerous advertising techniques that target kids and teenagers.

Based on survey data from Common Sense Media and Pew Research, as well as demographic statistics from the U.S. Census, the researchers calculated the number of users under the age of 18 on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (previously Twitter), and YouTube in 2022 in order to arrive at the revenue projection. The researchers then estimated each platform’s U.S. ad income in 2022 and the amount of time kids spend on it each day using data from Qustodio, a parental control tool, and research company eMarketer, which is now named Insider Intelligence. The researchers then claimed to have created a simulation model using the data in order to calculate the amount of money the platforms made from children in the United States via advertising.

Legislators and researchers have long been concerned about the detrimental impacts of social media, whose highly customized algorithms might encourage youngsters to use them excessively. Legislators in states like Utah and New York proposed or approved laws this year to limit children’s usage of social media, citing worries about the impact on young people’s mental health among other things.

Numerous states are suing Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, for allegedly being a part of the mental health epidemic.

Bryn Austin, a professor in Harvard’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and a senior author of the study, said, “Although social media platforms may claim that they can self-regulate their practices to reduce the harms to young people, they have yet to do so, and our study suggests they have overwhelming financial incentives to continue to delay taking meaningful steps to protect children.”

The sites themselves do not disclose the amount of money they get from underage users.

Parents and academics have long voiced concerns about selling to children online, on television, and even in schools. Social media sites are hardly the first to promote to children. But because they might be directed at youngsters and the distinction between advertisements and the content they are interested in is sometimes hazy, internet advertisements can be particularly harmful.

Children are “uniquely vulnerable to the persuasive effects of advertising because of immature critical thinking skills and impulse inhibition,” according to a 2020 policy statement published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The article observed that although school-aged children and teens may be able to identify advertising, they often lack the ability to reject it when it is placed next to tailored material, promoted by celebrities, or integrated into reliable social networks.

The Federal Trade Commission recommended significant revisions to a decades-old legislation earlier this month that governs how internet businesses may monitor and advertise to children, in response to growing concerns about social media and children’s mental health. Limiting push notifications and turning off targeted adverts for children under 13 by default are two of the suggested adjustments.

A Harvard research found that YouTube made the most money ($959.1 million) from users aged 12 and younger, with Instagram and Facebook coming in second and third, respectively, at $801.1 million and $137.2 million.

In contrast, Instagram made $4 billion in ad income from users between the ages of 13 and 17, with TikTok coming in second with $2 billion and YouTube with $1.2 billion.

Additionally, the researchers project that 41% of Snapchat’s total 2022 ad income came from users under the age of 18, with TikTok coming in third at 35%, YouTube at 27%, and Instagram at 16%.