It’s a new affair that they could have done without. Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok will face legal action from American school districts. The latter accuse them of having knowingly made their applications addictive, which would have created a mental health crisis among their students.
Web giants on the defensive
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that the complaint was admissible, so the case will be able to proceed. The plaintiffs believe in particular that these web giants designed their platforms to get children addicted. This is true of their algorithms, but also of the Like buttons, which can be addictive.
In a statement, attorneys for the school districts welcomed the decision:
Due to the addictive design of Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, students are struggling. This means schools are in trouble – their budgets are strained and their educational missions are diverted as they take on the added responsibility of supporting children in crisis.
Implicated, the companies denied these accusations. This is particularly the case of Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda, who underlines: “Working with experts in youth, mental health and parenting, we have developed services and policies to provide age-appropriate experiences for young people and rigorous controls for parents”.
Same story on Meta’s side: “We’ve developed many tools to help parents and teens, and we recently announced that we’re dramatically changing the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens with new Teen Accounts, a gated experience for teens who automatically limits who can contact them and the content they see”.
Some context
Many studies have looked into this subject. Some clearly pointed the finger at big tech companies for their choices. Recent research, which carried out a meta-analysis of 46 studies pointing to the link between the deterioration of the mental health of young people and the use of social networks, sought to be more nuanced.
Scientists understand parents’ concerns and say excessive use of these platforms can be harmful and that it “there are many contents and forms of use likely to aggravate problems among young people”.
However, they also point to certain positive effects of these applications among Internet users who can successfully overcome certain psychological problems and communicate with other people online thanks to these services.
The Swiss psychologist Daniel Süsss states: “The reasons for the increase in psychological disorders among young people are much more complex than is believed”.
