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Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

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Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#101

Post by anon84873628 »

Chinjut wrote: post #86
travisgriggs wrote: post #48

Lots of comments about this being the wrong group of people to initiate this. Others playing the “is it really the same thing” card. I find myself torn. They are often sound/reasoned arguments. But I also struggle because the state of play isn’t right either. Social media engagement is now one of the leading causes cited in divorces. My wife and I of nearly 30 years have to battle this ourselves. Something seems clea…

What is the manner in which social media is causing you and your wife of nearly 30 years to have to battle divorce?

I interpret this to mean that social media addiction (or what have you) is an additional burden to deal with when doing the day to day maintenance work of a relationship. Like, it's probably harder to do fun things together (especially spontaneously) when the other person is already entertained on their phone. Or maybe a partner is letting their household chores slip because they are spending too much time on their phone. (So then the other person has to be the asshole asking them to do it, which can seem infantilizing and create resentment on both sides). And making the relationship harder will push you more towards the "divorce" realm than otherwise.

I've had friends mention the deterioration of their older parent's relationship due to phone addiction. One said her mother couldn't even properly enjoy a vacation because going out dinner dinner or a hike required putting the phone away for too long. Basically it is similar to the problems caused by any other addiction.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#102

Post by kube-system »

finnh wrote: post #62

Seattle Public Schools has seen enrollment drop 30% (!!!) over the past couple years because it is an utter shambles [0]. (correction: many schools have that level of decline or higher, but the decline district-wide is much lower). Cancelling as many advanced classes as possible, without grandfathering, so (eg) my two sons were both forced to repeat a year of math when they cancellled year-up math. An administration…

Maybe the dopamine addictions that many of these kids experience are the reason they’re bored with school. Maybe they’re a contributing reason that remote learning was ineffective.

When I was a kid, going to school was the social medium. Even the kids who skipped class physically came to school to meet up. Now that we’ve removed that incentive for attendance, no wonder kids don’t show up.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#103

Post by tempsy »

finnh wrote: post #85
tempsy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don’t know anything about the other issues facing the school but to say social media addiction is a “dumb” thing to address seems incredibly naive to me. growing up is hard enough as it is and social media absolutely can be detrimental to mental health if used excessively. imo the only reason we haven’t properly addressed the issue as a society is because it’s incredibly difficult to “prove” from a research perspec…

Social media is awful and terrible; no argument there. But SPS has much larger problems to address internally before tackling this broader societal issue.

You can do two things at once.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#104

Post by jrm4 »

travisgriggs wrote: post #48

Lots of comments about this being the wrong group of people to initiate this. Others playing the “is it really the same thing” card. I find myself torn. They are often sound/reasoned arguments. But I also struggle because the state of play isn’t right either. Social media engagement is now one of the leading causes cited in divorces. My wife and I of nearly 30 years have to battle this ourselves. Something seems clea…

That's exactly it. As a lawyer, I'm aware that it's technically discouraged to initiate lawsuits for e.g. "political" or "social" reasons beyond the affected parties -- but I definitely think we're in "something has to be done, or at least TALKED ABOUT" territory, and I have no personal problem with this approach.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#105

Post by LarryMullins »

idopmstuff wrote: post #93
tempsy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don’t know anything about the other issues facing the school but to say social media addiction is a “dumb” thing to address seems incredibly naive to me. growing up is hard enough as it is and social media absolutely can be detrimental to mental health if used excessively. imo the only reason we haven’t properly addressed the issue as a society is because it’s incredibly difficult to “prove” from a research perspec…

Social media addiction is an important thing to address, but a school district filing lawsuits against social media companies just seems like the worst possible way to address it. This is an organization whose entire purpose is educating kids. If they want to address social media addiction, why on earth would they not start by educating kids about it?

I expect that'll work about as well as gym teachers teaching kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs. Such admonitions might sometimes work for individual kids, but on the whole they don't work.

TikTok/etc is unlike sex and illicit drugs in that it's a commercial enterprise that is operating openly and can in theory be sued into submission. You can't sue a plant anybody can grow in their closet, but you can sue a tech company.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#106

Post by tempsy »

idopmstuff wrote: post #93
tempsy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don’t know anything about the other issues facing the school but to say social media addiction is a “dumb” thing to address seems incredibly naive to me. growing up is hard enough as it is and social media absolutely can be detrimental to mental health if used excessively. imo the only reason we haven’t properly addressed the issue as a society is because it’s incredibly difficult to “prove” from a research perspec…

Social media addiction is an important thing to address, but a school district filing lawsuits against social media companies just seems like the worst possible way to address it. This is an organization whose entire purpose is educating kids. If they want to address social media addiction, why on earth would they not start by educating kids about it?

This is really silly. Putting the onus on kids to fight the addictive cues created by sophisticated social media companies that actively work to make their products even more addictive is absolutely not the right way to address it.

Though I do agree that if school districts actually cared enough today they should start by banning social media use on school premises and more aggressively monitor phone usage during class.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#107

Post by mozman »

nickphx wrote: post #66

What sort of mental gymnastics does one have to do to place blame on a third party when you have to seek, install the app and actively engage with? What is preventing the parents from parenting?

School officials are no stranger to mental gymnastics, there are a ton of problems with school systems.

It’s more indoctrination than anything else at this point.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#108

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

LarryMullins wrote: post #40
danielfoster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lawsuit is going to be dismissed due to lack of standing.

TikTok offers their service to people they know to be teenagers, during school hours, when those teenagers are inside the school building (with TikTok's tracking of users, they surely know it.) I don't expect this lawsuit to succeed, but it's not entirely without merit and I do think the school district has some standing if for no other reason than because TikTok is serving videos to, and accepting uploads from, stud…

Since Google/Apple have location services data on the phone, map databases that know where schools are, and the ability to limit use of specific apps or the entire device, do you figure they are similarly liable? It would seem a lot easier to have the platforms solve the problem once than delegate it out to be solved a millions times by every app in the store.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#109

Post by CyberDildonics »

DueDilligence wrote: post #47
LarryMullins wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media is a very dangerous and addictive drug that is difficult to police. It should be heavily regulated as it's destroying society. 100% agree, but > No grandstanding It's definitely grandstanding. Even though they're right about social media, it's definitely grandstanding. A cause being just doesn't mean people aren't grandstanding about it. This is grandstanding because it's a public stunt that is very un…

.. you've much to learn on the tenaciousness of a highly focused legal team - which is core to this lawsuit.

Saying ".. you've much to learn" isn't evidence or an explanation of anything. If you have something you can explain, go ahead.

Re: Seattle Public Schools sues TikTok, YouTube, Instagram over youth mental health

#110

Post by LarryMullins »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #108
LarryMullins wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok offers their service to people they know to be teenagers, during school hours, when those teenagers are inside the school building (with TikTok's tracking of users, they surely know it.) I don't expect this lawsuit to succeed, but it's not entirely without merit and I do think the school district has some standing if for no other reason than because TikTok is serving videos to, and accepting uploads from, stud…

Since Google/Apple have location services data on the phone, map databases that know where schools are, and the ability to limit use of specific apps or the entire device, do you figure they are similarly liable? It would seem a lot easier to have the platforms solve the problem once than delegate it out to be solved a millions times by every app in the store.

Yes, I think they should be.
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