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By Kary Deng
Over the past decade, the opioid epidemic has become a pressing issue. As scientists attempt to study the cause of turning to opioids, a silent market has increased in the background.
Social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, have changed how the youth communicate, discover trends, and share information. These same systems that have been preached as a way to bridge communication now promote content that gets them the most amount of money. Social media corporations are for-profit, which leads them to promote material that will get them the most engagement online.
These platforms can expose users to harmful materials, including content related to opioids and other drugs.
Tim Mackey, a professor of Global Health in the Global Health Program at UC San Diego, reported, “Children and youth are at much higher risk for digital exposure to substance use disorder content and also to illicit drug sales. This is a whole ecosystem – there are drug sellers pretty much all over the Internet in all different places. And the Internet interconnects these different sources in different ways.”
Algorithms that are designed to maximize user engagement can amplify risky content to users. A user who watches a video referencing prescription painkillers may be recommended posts discussing drug use, personal experiences, or methods of obtaining substances.
This pattern of exposure has normalized drug culture, especially within the youth, and makes experimentation with opioids appear more common or socially acceptable than it actually is.
Six years ago, 14-year-old Alex Neville was found by his mother Amy lying dead on a bean bag chair after overdosing. His mother cited that her son was experimenting with illicit opioids through the social media site, Snapchat.
“It was on Snapchat that Alex was able to visit with dealers and other users. It was on Snapchat that he set up a deal to get pills,” she told a House panel in Washington, D.C., in 2023.
The dealer was never caught or prosecuted, and Snapchat never acknowledged its role in Alex’s death.
Dealers can advertise pills through coded language, emojis, or private messaging features that allow transactions to occur. Online marketplaces make it significantly easier for young people to be exposed to seeking dangerous substances, such as opioids.
Unfortunately, the story of Alex Neville isn’t a singular one. When combined with mental health challenges, social pressures, and easy digital access, the online environment can increase the likelihood that some individuals experiment with opioids.
While social media platforms continue ignoring problems on their sites that cause deaths, young people across the nation are paying the price.
We must demand legislative action to be put in place to change the way social media platforms are allowed to profit off of the dangerous content they advertise.
Awareness of the negative impacts of social media usage needs to be highlighted so parents, educators, and social media platforms will push to establish stronger safety guidelines to protect the next generation.
Because no trend, no app, and no algorithm is worth the price of a person’s health, happiness and life.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.
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