Frantz is a trial lawyer and a fellow and associate of the American Board of Trial Advocates. He lives in San Diego.
It’s no surprise that the increase in social media engagement by kids has led to significant mental health challenges among our children. Educators are seeing higher proportions of anxiety and depression in students — proportions that severely affect their performance and success in the classroom.
Millions of students across the country are subjected to harmful and exploitive material that all too often leads to body dissatisfaction, depression and self-harm. It is an endless spigot of corrosive material fueled by addictive algorithms that target our children and adolescents precisely during critical stages of brain development when they are most vulnerable to harmful social media platforms. As a grandfather of young children, I believe that the deliberate targeting of youth through these algorithms is wrong.
The weight of the evidence proves that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes such as depression and anxiety. A 2021 survey found that, on average, teens spend 3.5 hours a day on social media. Although 64 percent of adolescents are “often” or “sometimes” exposed to hate-based information through social media, over half report that it would be hard to give up social media. At a time when one-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel “addicted” to certain social media platforms, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has warned that social media may perpetuate disordered eating behaviors, social comparison and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls.
How can we expect students to learn and perform in this environment? The answer is we can’t.
At Frantz Law Group, we have taken up the battle against social media platforms on behalf of over 900 school districts with 5 million students enrolled from 38 states throughout the country. The lawsuit seeks to hold Meta, TikTok, Google, Snap and their related companies accountable for knowingly causing harm to children using their products and for the failure to warn of the risks associated with their platforms.
Frances Haugen, a former Meta employee, testified before Congress that the company’s internal research indicated how harmful their products are to the mental health of child users, especially teen girls. These companies are making billions of dollars off the backs of our kids through their algorithms that fail to warn users and parents of the harm they cause.
They know there is sex trafficking on their platforms. They know students have committed suicide because of things that they have read on social media. Yet the companies aren’t willing to make the needed changes on their own.
In 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued a national advisory on the youth mental health crisis, noting that social media is an important driver of the crisis. “Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment,” said Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. “And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends.”
Our lawsuit is at the forefront of a growing movement seeking to hold social media companies accountable for their manipulative algorithms and their negative impact on users. The litigation seeks accountability and change in social media behavior to mitigate the ongoing damage in school districts nationwide.
Forty-two states’ attorneys general have joined in the fight to hold social media platforms accountable. As legal proceedings unfold, the outcome of this lawsuit should herald a new era of accountability and responsibility on the part of social media companies, ultimately leading to significant safety measures in the way these platforms operate and affect our children.
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