The News Not Noise Letter: Is Social Media Really the Problem?
There’s another culprit for the teen mental health crisis. Plus: how Dobbs is driving women out of state, and why are people freaking out about the draft?
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As a reminder, we’re hosting a Zoom for our paid subscribers this Thursday, June 20 at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. Registration information and a request for questions is below the paywall at the end of this newsletter.
Here are your headlines:
Return of the Draft? The House GOP passed a controversial defense bill that’s spawned a ton of viral social media posts claiming the bill reinstates the military draft. That’s misleading: the government is not about to send unenlisted men to war against their will. That said, most young men aged 18-25 are already required to register for the Selective Service. Failing to do so is a felony. The House’s new bill would simply automate the required registration. The panic this viral rumor generated made us realize there’s a lot we don’t know about selective service – and how the draft works. We get into that at the end of the newsletter (behind the paywall). The House bill also included a number of “culture war” provisions. Among them: it bars spending on gender-affirming care; slashes DEI programs; and even blocks the Pentagon from reimbursing service members who travel to obtain an abortion. The bill still has to get through the Senate where controversial elements could be watered down or removed.
Out-of-State Abortions: The impact of the Dobbs ruling is just starting to show up in data: a new report from the Guttmacher Institute estimates over 171,000 Americans had to travel to a different state to get an abortion in 2023. This is based on reporting from abortion providers nationwide. Illinois was the most common destination for abortion-seekers, since it is the closest state with robust abortion protections for many in the Midwest and South. Illinois provided roughly 37,300 abortions to residents of 16 other states.
Lately I’ve been sharing some tools I use to reduce my anxiety about the state of the world and my experience being on technology all day. One tool I’ve found very useful is incogni. incogni is a low-cost service that contacts data brokers on your behalf to get your information taken off lists that spam you. After I signed up for incogni the number of spam calls I got plummeted. So did the infuriating texts from marketers in my inbox. It also helps me to know that someone’s working to get my name and personal details out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. They’re offering 50% off to the News Not Noise community. You can check them out by clicking this link. To get 50% off sign up using this code: NewsNotNoise55
Israel/Gaza Updates: On Monday, tens of thousands of Israelis who oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to demand early elections and the return of the hostages. Netanyahu officially dissolved the war cabinet after two key members resigned. Without the multi-party War Cabinet, Netanyahu will make more unilateral decisions on war policy, and won’t have the backing of centrists to deflect the blowback. The IDF is pausing fighting during daylight hours in some regions of southern Gaza to improve distribution of humanitarian aid. A White House special envoy is in Israel to try to prevent further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. And the US Navy rescued sailors from a Greek cargo ship struck by Houthis in the Red Sea.
Maryland Marijuana Pardons: Today Maryland’s Gov. Wes Moore pardoned more than 175,000 low-level marijuana charges, clearing these charges for roughly 100,000 people. (Some had more than one conviction cleared.) Recreational marijuana use has been legal in Maryland since 2023. At a signing event, Moore noted that marijuana charges have disproportionately impacted Maryland’s Black community – despite a 2022 report showing white Americans have a higher lifetime rate of marijuana use than Black Americans.
Here’s some news that doesn’t suck:
Back In Public: This weekend Catherine, Princess of Wales made her first public appearance since her cancer diagnosis. She attended King Charles’s birthday parade, joining her fellow royals on the balcony and waving to the public.
Suff’s Wins: And huge congrats to friend of News Not Noise Jill Furman, producer of the Broadway show Suffs. Composer and playwright Shaina Taub won two Tony Awards for her show about suffragettes. See it if you haven’t already!
Social Media & Teen Mental Health:
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy today called on Congress to require a health risk warning label on social media, much like the warnings on tobacco products. In an op-ed in the New York Times, he explained that these warning labels have proven effective for tobacco and that, similar to the harms caused by tobacco, social media is an “important contributor” to the teen mental health crisis. Murthy argues that a warning label would “increase awareness and change behavior.
Counterpoint: We’ve written a lot on tech and the teen mental health crisis, often citing the work of both Surgeon General Murthy and Jonathan Haidt, who argues social media and smartphones are to blame for the sudden and dramatic rise in teen mental illness in the past decade or so, especially among girls. It’s an important discussion and there is ample research to show a correlation between teen depression and social media use for some kids. In the interest of having a fully informed perspective we want to share a compelling counterargument from David Wallace-Wells, a New York Times science writer. Wallace-Wells blames a different culprit: Obamacare.
Below the paywall we explain how Obamacare might be driving higher reports of depression. We also share more on the military draft and information on how to register for our paid subscriber Zoom this Thursday.