The Children Left Behind After An Explosion of Family Violence

Plus, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation awards several prestigious prizes to physicians, scientists and public citizens for outstanding research in mental health. Nominate someone you know! The deadline is April 29th.

Adolescent brains can’t resist social media — but research finds that changing the apps can help

Late last month, a Los Angeles jury found Youtube, which is owned by Google, and Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, liable for intentionally building addictive platforms which harmed the mental health of some users.

The day before, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for enabling harm, including sexual harm, of the platform’s underage users. Both companies said they disagree with the verdicts and plan to appeal, but recent scientific research doesn’t support their positions.

Teens have developed social media habits that “mirror symptoms of addiction to substances,” such as withdrawal and impaired functioning, pediatrician and digital media researcher Dr. Jason Nagata, author of a recent study on the subject, told NPR. 

Earlier studies focused primarily on the length and frequency of child and adolescent screen use. Scientists have since expanded to document compulsive, addiction-like behaviors in teen users, including withdrawal symptoms, an inability to cut back and a compulsive use of apps.

Nagata’s study, published earlier this month, found these patterns in children as young as 11 and 12 and linked compulsive use to depression, attention problems, suicidal behavior, sleep disruption and even substance experimentation a year later.

In a partial acknowledgement of the issue, digital media platforms have instituted time limits and “time to turn off” notifications, though neither measure goes far enough in curbing compulsive use.

Based on their findings, researchers suggest that platforms make structural changes like restricting infinite scroll, limiting notifications near bedtime and defaulting all minors’ accounts to private so their data is not shared with other companies or used to personalize content meant to extend their time online. 

Mitch Prinstein, who researches technology and brain development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also stressed the need to severely limit or eliminate “like” notifications, which teens’ developing brains just can’t handle. “These are young folks who have a hypersensitive, social brain and a very weak prefrontal cortex…“it’s just too hard for adolescent brains to resist.”

Until Congress passes meaningful regulations, both researchers encourage parents to check their child’s social media usage and engage the parental control features within apps while advocating for age limits that actually work.

Lying about one’s birthdate is easy enough to do without verification checks in place, and Nagata’s research found that nearly two-thirds of 11- and 12-year-olds have multiple accounts. Though the U.S. Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act in 2024, the bill has stalled in the House.

“Until someone compels platforms to do something differently, sadly, the burden is on us to limit our kids’ exposure,” Prinstein said.

As our culture faces its own horrors, may we allow the survivors to own their stories

Last week, I struggled to keep watch on the news. As a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence, both as a child and an adult, it was hard to stomach what I interpreted as the rush to mourn and mythologize former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a man who murdered his brilliant and accomplished wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, in a final act of dominance before turning the gun on himself. 

The news hit one week ago, not long after a CNN investigation revealed the existence of an online rape academy in which men across the globe shared tips on how to drug and sexually assault their partners.

It also followed the resignations of two members of Congress, former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and former Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, after accusations of sexual misconduct.

The week ended with a mass shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana, in which a man killed eight children — seven of which were his own — and severely wounded his wife and suspected girlfriend.

Women across social media shared personal accounts of survival, often explaining that ending relationships with an abusive partner took so much time because they knew that leaving without a near-perfect strategy could cost them their lives. Then this week arrived, and childhood survivors of similar atrocities offered a glimpse into their stories. Two of my favorite writers’ accounts stood out: Bernice L. McFadden’s video posted here and Kahn Davison’s essay published by MS Now.

Davison was 15 months old when his father murdered his mother before killing himself. His maternal grandparents raised Davison, choosing to never tell him what happened and forbidding their social circle from revealing the details. (An easier mandate to uphold for a child born in 1976.) Davison’s own search for information during his freshman year of college answered some of his questions.

What strikes me most is Davison’s lasting appreciation for his grandparents’ decision to withhold the truth of his parents’ deaths from him. It allowed him to grow up without the mental and emotional burden the world places on survivors of such incidents, giving him power over his story rather than giving the story power over him.

While the Fairfax children now carry the grief of their parents’ deaths, he offers them permission to reject the stigma that the world will attempt to heap upon them and allow the fullness of their lives to still take shape.

“The most beautiful thing about life is that we get to be our own biographers,” Davison writes. “Every day is a new chapter, and I pray that eventually they wake up every morning looking forward to writing it.”

In other news…

Nominate a scientist to advance their mental health research (Deadline: April 29): The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation is accepting nominations for its 2026 Outstanding Achievement Prizes through Wednesday, April 29, 2026. Prizes range from $40,000–$50,000 and recognize scientists doing transformative work in schizophrenia, cognitive neuroscience, and mood disorders research.

Of particular note for our readers: the Ruane Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research awards $50,000 to a scientist whose work focuses on the causes, treatment, or prevention of severe psychiatric illness in children and adolescents — including psychotic, affective and other serious disorders with childhood or adolescent onset.

If you know of a researcher doing meaningful work in youth mental health, this is a worthy nomination to make before the April 29 deadline. More details are available on the BBRF website.

Last week, as we went to press, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, where he repeated the administration’s position that Medicaid home- and community-based services are paying for care that family members should provide for free.

ANCOR, the American Network of Community Options and Resources, pushed back sharply, calling Kennedy’s framing a dangerous oversimplification that “woefully diminishes” the work of millions of direct care workers and ignores that many family caregivers are children, elderly, disabled or otherwise unable to provide the level of care required.

Moreover, research shows that when public support systems erode, the work of care doesn’t disappear — it just gets redistributed to whoever is at home. For millions of families, as ANCOR noted, no suitable caregiver exists at all. For others, as Lisa McCarty reported, that person is a child.