More than a few still carry the scars, including one 80-year-old woman I recently spoke to about her middle school experience. Instead of facing a mean girl or boy of his own, he wound up with a social media influencer in his class who held sway over the entire grade. “All of these issues with social media are coming to a head right now and there’s wildly insufficient research,” Marc Berkman, CEO of the non-profit Organization for Social Media Safety, told me recently. Middle school is complicated enough without all the extra pressures generated by having a social media influencer sitting next to you. From middle school science class, we know that a fire needs oxygen to burn.

---

Persons: Michelle Leder, Michelle Leder Scott Cooper, cooties, she’d, ” Marc Berkman, ”, Zers, influencer Organizations: SEC, CNN, Social Media Safety, Twitter, Facebook Studies, Wall Street Journal Locations: Louisville , Kentucky, Brooklyn , New York, —