PITTSBURGH Pittsburgh Public Schools on Thursday sued several social media companies for the platforms’ alleged role in the nation’s youth mental health crisis.
The federal suit – filed in the US. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube – claims the platforms induced “young people to compulsively use their services,” leading to a worsening mental health crisis school districts now have to grapple with.
This week’s filing came months after Pittsburgh Public School Board members in January announced their intention to sue. The district is following the lead of the Seattle school district, which that month filed a complaint against social media companies.
Pittsburgh’s 271-page lawsuit claims the companies have engaged behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry to make their platforms more addictive. Techniques include design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement and the targeting of youth who are in a development stage “that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of these features,” the suit reads.
Choices made by the companies, the suit states, “have generated extraordinary corporate profits – and yielded immense tragedy.”
Suicide rates among youth are up to 57%, with emergency room visits for anxiety disorders reaching 117%, the lawsuit states. By 2021, one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide.
Additionally, the lawsuit states that “excessive and compulsive” social media use has harmed institutions like school districts that “have no choice but to address the consequences” of “harmful social media services.” Districts have been forced to educate about the harm of social media and “its warped version of reality,” and to treat the direct mental health consequences caused by the platforms.
Pittsburgh Public Schools is seeking to recover damages from the social media companies and hold them responsible for the “harm caused by their wrongful conduct,” the suit reads.
During the January meeting, district solicitor Ira Weiss said there will be no cost to the district because one of the law firms will be covering the upfront expenses.
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