Seattle public schools sued large social media platforms on January 6, 2023, with the case set to be heard by the US Supreme Court. This is not the only filed a school suing these platforms, with Kent School District filing their own lawsuit a few days after. This 91-page lawsuit demands that these companies be held accountable for the harmful effect they have had on the youth’s mental health. These platforms’ goal is to increase the amount of screen time by “exploiting the vulnerable brains of youth” (Yang, 2023). With this increase of screen time, students are being exposed to dangerous content, leading to deteriorating health. According to NPR, there has been a correlation between an increased screen time and issues such as mental health, lack of sleep, cyberbullying, etc. The school expresses its lack of staff and inability to treat the growing mental health crisis within its district. Despite the fears, AP News describes how “graduation rates have been on the rise since 2019” putting into question just how disruptive the apps are to education (Johnson 2023). Social media also kept students in communication with one another during the isolation of the pandemic.

This is not the first-time social media has faced push back in the form of lawsuits. In 2021, Wall Street Journal investigated whether TikTok’s “extreme diet videos” led to eating disorder in teenage girls. These pieces of information are often not public, as the NPR reported that a Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, exposed 2021 studies that prove Instagram “executives hid research about the risks the company’s products posed to kids” from the public and investors (Yang 2023). While the negative exposure puts these social media platforms in a tight spot, they are not without protection. Due to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, “tech companies can’t be held liable for what others share on their sites” (Yang 2023). The lawsuit against such companies aims to make the algorithms used by them common knowledge to the public and confine Section 230 to specific boundaries. Many of these practices were put into place due to the many suspicions of the type of content being subjected to the youth, often designed to appeal to specific tastes and demographics.

The lawsuit follows a pattern throughout human history of backlash against new innovations and technologies. An invention can make our lives more efficient and comfortable, but it can also affect our livelihoods and mentalities. With social media people can connect, ideas can be shared, and information can be learned from across the globe. Humanity has never been more connected than it is right now. However, there is a fear that this technology will make us lose our humanity by distracting us from the world around us. Screen addiction keeps us from interacting with our family and friends and makes our lives so easy that it bores us. What we see online can also make us insecure and lower our self-esteem, leading to depression and anxiety. TikTok has its good and bad elements, so it's up to the individual to decide whether one outweighs the other.

Works Cited

Johnson, Gene. “School Lawsuits over Social Media Harm Face Tough Legal Road.” AP News, 11 Jan. 2023, apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-technology-seattle-social-media-lawsuits-24adabfb13223a6acb0210b93caf0928.

Yang, Mary. “3 Reasons Why Seattle Schools Are Suing Big Tech over a Youth Mental Health Crisis.” NPR, 11 Jan. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/01/10/1134832529/seattle-schools-big-tech-lawsuit-takeaways.

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“School Lawsuits, like Seattle’s, over Social Media Harm Face Tough Legal Road.” The Columbian, 13 Jan. 2023, www.columbian.com/news/2023/jan/11/school-lawsuits-like-seattles-over-so....