Social Media - A Youth Mental Health Crisis
Case Overview
Keller Rohrback L.L.P. represents the City of New York and school districts around the country that spend resources addressing the youth mental health crisis that directly impacts their educational communities and their missions to educate their students.
Research continues to confirm that social media plays a major role in causing mental health problems in youth and that excessive and problematic use of social media is harmful to children’s mental, behavioral, and emotional health. Research also confirms that excessive use of social media is associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders, and suicide in youth.
Plaintiffs allege in their complaints that Defendants’ actions related to their social media platforms substantially contribute to the mental health crisis America’s youth are facing. The harms allegedly caused by Defendants include, but are not limited to, intentionally designing, marketing, and operating their exploitive social media platforms to be extremely popular with youth users, despite research that confirms the severe and wide-ranging effects of social media on youth mental health.
As alleged in the complaints, Defendants have made choices to target youth, to maximize the time youth spend on Defendants’ social media platforms, and then designed their algorithms to feed children harmful content, like videos promoting eating disorders, violence, self-harm, and suicide. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants choose to put profits over the mental health of children and that Defendants’ current business models for their social media platforms are deeply flawed and are causing real harm.
You can read the complaints in their entirety at the bottom of this webpage under the link to Case Documents.
Who are the Defendants?
Plaintiffs have sued the following Defendants:
- Facebook and Instagram Defendants: Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) and Meta’s subsidiaries (Facebook Holdings, LLC; Facebook Operations, LLC; Meta Payments Inc.; Instagram, LLC; and Siculus, Inc.);
- Snap Defendant: Snap Inc.;
- TikTok Defendants: TikTok Inc., ByteDance Inc., TikTok PTE. Ltd., and ByteDance Ltd.; and
- YouTube Defendants: Google LLC and YouTube, LLC.
What is the youth mental health crisis?
- Students around the country, are struggling with anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, and suicidal ideation, which led Plaintiffs to join the U.S. Surgeon General in recognizing the youth mental health crisis in their communities.
- This crisis pre-dates Covid and was already growing before the pandemic. The pandemic made the problem worse by significantly increasing the time youth spent on-line and on social media platforms, but this crisis was coming before Covid.
- According to the Surgeon General, one in five children aged 13 to 17 now suffer from a mental health disorder. The Surgeon General stated: “Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real and widespread. Even before the pandemic, an alarming number of young people struggled with feelings of helplessness, depression, and thoughts of suicide — and rates have increased over the past decade.”
- The rise in the following rates directly correlate, and as alleged in the complaints are caused by youth’s increased use and exposure to Defendants’ social media platforms and Defendants’ decision-making regarding harmful material directed towards youth:
- From 2009 to 2019, the rate of high school students who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 40 percent (to one out of every three kids);
- From 2007 to 2019, suicide rates among youth ages 10–24 in the United States increased by 57 percent. By 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10–24; and
- From 2007 to 2016, emergency room visits for youth ages 5–17 rose 117 percent for anxiety disorders, 44 percent for mood disorders, and 40 percent for attention disorders.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association have all declared children and adolescent mental health a national emergency.
- The national youth mental health crisis continues to worsen. In May 2023, the Surgeon General issued a new advisory about the effects of social media on youth mental health based on the most recent research. The research the Surgeon General cites indicates, among other things, that youth who spend more than three hours per day on social media platforms face twice the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety.
As alleged in the complaints, Defendants’ social media platforms contribute to the youth mental health crisis through Defendants’ algorithms, their marketing approach, and their business strategies.
- The increase in suicides, attempted suicides, and mental-health related ER visits as social media has become more and more ubiquitous is no coincidence. As alleged in the complaints, research has identified social media as playing a major role in causing mental health problems in youth.
- More than 90% of youth today use social media. Most youth primarily use five platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, on which they spend many hours a day.
- Research tells us that excessive and problematic use of social media is harmful to the mental, behavioral, and emotional health of youth and is associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders, and suicide.
- Defendants’ social media business models are based upon maximizing the time users spend on their platforms. Defendants have designed their platforms so that users constantly feel the need to be on it.
- Children’s brains are particularly vulnerable both to the ways in which social media companies manipulate them to keep them using the platform and to the resulting harms.
