The lawsuit also claims that harmful content, including extreme diet plans and encouragement of self-harm, is pushed to users, which has led to a 30 percent increase between 2009 and 2019 of students who report feeling “so sad or hopeless… for two weeks or more in a row that [they] stopped doing some usual activities.” The schools are seeking to hold these companies liable for the harm they have caused to the mental health of their students.
Seattle public schools have filed a lawsuit against tech giants, accusing them of creating a “mental health crisis among America’s Youth” through their social media platforms. The lawsuit claims that the excessive use of these platforms has led to a drop in academic performance among students, and has made them “less likely to attend school, more likely to engage in substance use, and to act out, all of which directly affects Seattle Public Schools’ ability to fulfil its educational mission.”
