The largest social media platforms have deliberately targeted children in developing their services and are responsible for a crisis in youth mental health, Pittsburgh Public Schools said in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.
The suit is seeking damages against Meta, Instagram, Google, TikTok and others for “designing dangerous services” that cause harm to children and failing to warn about it, all in the name of profit.
Meta was also singled out in the suit for “engaging in deliberate concealment” of the health risks to users.
The suit says American children are suffering from an “unprecedented mental health crisis” fueled by the social media companies’ “addictive and dangerous” platforms.
The companies deliberately target young people to compulsively use their services, the suit says, borrowing techniques used by slot machine companies and the cigarette industry to hook children and drive ad revenue.
The companies know children are vulnerable but pursue them anyway, the suit says, to make money.
The platforms use an algorithmically generated “endless feed” to keep users scrolling to manipulate dopamine delivery to the brain, according to the complaint. Those techniques include awards for heavy use, metrics to exploit social comparisons and “incessant notifications” that encourage children to check their accounts constantly.
“The resulting ubiquity of defendants’ services in the lives and palms of our kids, and the ensuing harm to them, is hard to overstate,” the suit says.
The complaint goes on to cite numerous statistics supporting the contention that social media is pervasive among young people. A third of children 13 to 17 report using one of the defendants’ apps constantly, yet more than half say they would have trouble cutting back, the suit says.
“Instead of feeding coins into machines, kids are feeding defendants’ platforms with an endless supply of attention, time, and data,” the complaint states.
The result, according to the suit, is harm to mental health, particularly as it relates to suicide. In 2019, 1 in 5 high school girls had made a plan to kill themselves, the suit says. Social media also contributes to anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders and a host of other ills, the complaint says.
The school district sued on counts of public nuisance, negligence and fraudulent concealment specifically against Meta. The suit is asking for damages to compensate the district for injuries as a result of the platforms’ marketing and distribution, punitive damages and legal fees, among other costs.
The complaint also asks for an injunction against the companies to stop targeting children and provide warnings about the addictive nature of social media.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
