Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may seem undefeated when it comes to laying waste to trolls on Twitter. However, that doesn’t mean she’s necessarily a fan of social media platforms. In a new interview with the the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery” this week, the freshman congresswoman said that she’s no longer using Facebook other than her official account to promote advertisements and fundraising endeavors, and she is likewise attempting to scale back her overall social media usage.
As for her reasoning, Ocasio-Cortez said that she believes social media “poses a public health risk” and that it can lead to, depression, anxiety, and addiction, among other things:
“I actually think that social media poses a public health risk to everybody,” she said. “There are amplified impacts for young people, particularly children under the age of 3 with screen time. But I think it has a lot of effects on older people. I think it has effects on everybody. Increased isolation, depression, anxiety, addiction, escapism.”
The 29-year-old also said that she’s trying to limit her of social media consumption to during the week and tries to stay logged off during the weekends.
“Like every once in a while, you’ll see me hop on Twitter on the weekends, but for the most part, I take consumption of content, when it comes to consumption and reading, I take the weekends off.”
A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post that “the congresswoman’s words speak for themselves” when asked to comment. Likewise, Ocasio-Cortez writes all of her own tweets and Instagram posts.
(Via Washington Post)