Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a new interview that she gave up her personal Facebook account, adding that the move was especially painful because she first organized her successful congressional campaign on the platform.
The freshman lawmaker told Yahoo News’s “Skullduggery” podcast that “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,” she said. “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.”
{mosads}Ocasio-Cortez also said she “gave up on” Facebook, calling it a “big deal.”
“I personally gave up Facebook, which was kind of a big deal because I started my campaign on Facebook,” she said. “And Facebook was my primary digital organizing tool for a very long time. I gave up on it.”
The 29-year-old progressive often knocks critics and calls out President Trump on Twitter.
She told Yahoo News that she writes all her own posts on both Twitter and Instagram, and is aware of the effects social media has “both as a person with a larger audience but also as an individual user of these platforms.”
Ocasio-Cortez has also gained popularity for live-streaming daily tasks and habits on Instagram while talking to her viewers.