By Amelia Lipcsei
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, recently announced the rebranding of his popular, yet controversial app. After multitudes of controversies surrounding the privacy of Facebook users, Zuckerberg acknowledges that Facebook requires a change. To combat the plummeting value of Facebookstock and the increasing backlash from western society, the CEO decided to completely change the world-renowned app: renaming it Meta. With a variety of unique features such as virtual and mixed reality technologies, Meta, according to Zuckerburg, will become an “embodied internet.” Rather than simply scrolling through the app, Meta users will have the ability to interact with a fully immersive computer-generated world.
However, after the disaster surrounding Facebook privacy, many are apprehensive about allowing Zuckerbrg to create an even more mesmerizing media. In an open letter to the CEO, over 300 scientists expressed their concerns surrounding the possible negative mental health effects of Meta on teenagers. Shocked by the limited public information surrounding the social media app’s required research on mental health, scientists expressed that they “do not believe that the methodologies seen so far meet the high scientific standards required to responsibly investigate the mental health of children and adolescents.” With the information provided by Zuckerburg lacking proper results, many credible individuals deem Meta unsafe for public consumption. Unfortunately, with the false reality that Meta creates, Zuckerburg simply cannot monitor the adverse effects of the media on young adolescents. Thus, although the idea of Meta exemplifies innovation, the reality of the effects on consumers is truly disheartening.