Freya India takes on social media’s toll on Gen Z girls

Social media has built a business out of teenage insecurity, and Freya India used CBS Saturday Morning to argue that Gen Z girls are being converted into attention, data and ad revenue. In her book, GIRLS®: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything, India says the pressures of beauty, popularity and belonging are no longer incidental to online life. They are the product.

India, a contributing writer to The Free Press, appeared on CBS Saturday Morning, the CBS News program that bills itself as a home for original reporting, breaking news and profiles of leading figures in culture and the arts. Her book, published in hardcover on May 5, 2026, takes aim at the machinery that makes girlhood profitable: Instagram, dating apps, personal branding and a beauty culture that rewards constant comparison and self-surveillance.

That argument lands inside a company structure that has shifted rapidly. Paramount and Skydance completed their merger on August 7, 2025, forming Paramount, a Skydance Corporation. On October 6, 2025, Paramount announced it would acquire The Free Press and said Bari Weiss would join CBS News as editor-in-chief. India’s appearance on CBS put one of the company’s own contributing writers in front of a national audience to discuss a book that indicts the digital economy around youth identity.

The backdrop is not abstract. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis found that high school students who used social media frequently were more likely to report bullying victimization, persistent sadness or hopelessness and some suicide-risk measures. The agency also reported that in 2023 female students and LGBTQ+ students experienced more signs of poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors than male and cisgender, heterosexual peers. The pattern points to an online environment where appearance, status and affirmation are monetized at scale, and where the pressure is not evenly distributed.

Pew Research Center’s April 2025 survey of 1,391 U.S. teens and parents shows the ambivalence clearly. Forty-eight percent of teens said social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022. But 74% said it helps them feel more connected to friends, and 63% said it gives them a place to show off their creativity. That split defines the terrain India is writing about: platforms that promise connection and self-expression while profiting from comparison, clicks and the permanent performance of identity.