Marin education office sues social media companies over negative impact on kid’s mental health.

The Marin County Office of Education is suing social media companies, claiming they have a negative effect on children’s mental health.

The lawsuit, one of dozens filed across the country by school districts and local governments, has been brought on behalf of all Marin school students. It was filed April 28 in federal court in Oakland.

The lawsuit is part of multidistrict litigation involving multiple cases. Many of the cases, including Marin’s, are being consolidated before U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

The suit alleges that the social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok and Google-owned YouTube have violated California laws for public nuisance, unfair competition, negligence and racketeering.

“I believe holding entities accountable for the harm inflicted on youth — harm that is observable and impactful at schools — is necessary, primarily to limit and prevent future harm,” said John Carroll, Marin superintendent of schools.

Marin County and other plaintiffs are seeking  “changes in defendants’ social media platform designs and the implementation of protections for youth users,” said Aelish Baig, a San Francisco attorney who is representing Marin in the suit.

“We are also seeking funds to be used to abate the youth mental health crisis,” Baig said.

Attorney Phyllis Jones, who is representing one of the chief defendants, Meta Platforms Inc., parent company of Facebook and Instagram, referred all inquiries to the company. Representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

On Tuesday, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, issued an advisory, warning that social media was causing harm to youth mental health.

“Children and adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety,” the advisory summary states, referencing a 2019 study. “This is concerning as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media.”

Marin’s 148-page lawsuit spells out an exhaustive body of research on youth mental health harm over the past decade or more.

“This litigation is important because with the advent of social media, American adolescence has seen a dramatic change,” Baig said.  “More and more of our youth in Marin and across the country are suffering from mental and behavioral health disorders,”

Baig added that educators, health care providers and families “are seeing soaring rates of anxiety, depression, cyber-bullying, self-harm, suicide and other harms,” she said.

“A growing body of experts and research are correlating excessive social media use with these negative outcomes,” she added.

According to the Marin suit, the tactics used by the social media companies are intentionally done to increase profits.

“There is a reason America’s youth is online ‘almost constantly,’ which is that the primary metric of success for these social media giants is engagement,” according to the suit. “The companies’ success requires more users to be on their platforms for longer periods of time in order to maximize advertising revenue.”

The tactics include, the suit says, “(a) using algorithms and endless scrolls that create harmful experiences for children and teens; and (b) using intermittent variable rewards or dopamine hits to intentionally alter users’ behavior, creating habits and addiction.”

A Pew Research Center study found that almost half of U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 say they are online “almost constantly,” the suit states.

“Three decades ago, the gravest public health threats to teenagers in the United States came from binge drinking, drunk driving, teen pregnancy, and smoking,” the suit states. “With increased education, these have since fallen significantly, but have been replaced by a new public health concern: soaring rates of mental health disorders, including depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.”

The federal court in Oakland has set up a separate public webpage for the litigation on social media. It can be accessed at the main website, cand.uacourts.gov, under “Cases of Interest.”

According to Tuesday’s 19-page advisory by the U.S. surgeon general, he warned of the risks of social media to young people.

The unique advisory for the nation’s top health official, Dr. Vivek Murthy, urged a push to greater understand the possible harm to children.

While noting that the effects of social media on adolescent mental health were not fully understood, and that social media can be beneficial to some users, he also wrote, “There are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

The New York Times contributed to this report.