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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gives up personal Facebook, says social media is ‘public health risk’ – Washington Times

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose social media abilities allowed her 2018 grass root congressional campaign to flourish, said Sunday she has deleted her personal Facebook page, adding social media is a “public health risk to everybody.”

“I personally gave up Facebook, which was kind of a big deal because I started my campaign on Facebook. And Facebook was my primary digital organizing tool for a very long time. I gave up on it,” the New York Democrat said in an interview with Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast, adding her office “still has accounts” on the social media platform.

“Social media poses a public health risk to everybody. 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,” she added.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she has contemplated the costs of social media “both as a person with a larger audience but also as an individual user of these platforms” and has “imposed little rules” to monitor her online consumption.

“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. And so I’m not, like, scrolling through trying to read everything online that journalists are writing on weekends. I try to do that during the workweek,” she said.

During the same interview, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez discussed her views on 2020 candidates, adding she “will support whoever the Democratic nominee is,” but a candidacy featuring former Vice President Joseph R. Biden “doesn’t particularly animate me.”

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Posted May 3, 2020