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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

#121

Post by idopmstuff »

LarryMullins wrote: post #105
idopmstuff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

Gym teachers telling kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs isn't teaching them. You can teach kids how condoms work and that STDs stay with them for life. You can teach kids that drugs these days can be laced with fentanyl and how to acquire and use fentanyl test strips.

Those things won't stop kids from having sex or doing drugs, but they can certainly and do mitigate some of the harm.

You can take a similar approach to social media. Gym teachers telling them not to use TikTok will obviously not work, but you can teach them about how their data is shared and monetized. You can show them examples of people who posted things on social media and had their lives ruined over it. If the leaders of a school district have adopted the approach that you just can't teach kids anything they don't want to hear, I think they ought to find different jobs.

As for the lawsuit, sure, you can sue a social media company? Will you win? Maybe, after extensive and costly litigation. Will those companies be forced to change their behavior in meaningful ways that will impact your students? Maybe, or maybe they'll just pay a fine and make superficial changes that last until the next lawsuit concludes in half a decade, then repeat.

And besides that, even if you manage to win and dismantle Facebook, TikTok, etc., you'll have an infinite number of other companies coming in to fill the void. You can sue a tech company, but you can't sue a general class of software. You can legislate against it, but at best that is a long, hard road.

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

#122

Post by tzs »

slavboj wrote: post #61

School attendance is reliably associated with student suicide rate. We know it's causal because the association tracks random variations in the school year (snow days and make-up days, teacher strikes, differences in district calendars, etc). So forgive me if I believe their concern to be less than genuine. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/childrens-risk-of...

You seem to be assuming that they can't be concerned with more than one problem simultaneously. You also seem to be assuming that addressing social media problems in schools won't help address the suicide problem. You also seem to be assuming that they aren't already doing something to address the suicide problem.

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

#123

Post by asdff »

themitigating wrote: post #89
sien wrote: post #65

Teenagers have changed. There are a load of interesting stats about what has changed. From 1994 to now. Percent with a driver's licence has gone from 84.7% to 72.7%, tried alcohol fro 81% to 66.1%, gone on dates from 83% to 58% and had a job from 71.7% to 55% https://twitter.com/AlecStapp/status/1611500829441138688 Maybe less dates and less independence from adults is what is driving up depression. But it might be ha…

"Why aren't parents getting kids to drink more"

Its probably not that but more that teens are socializing less and spending more time on things like homework.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/20/the-way-u-s...

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

#124

Post by LarryMullins »

tempsy wrote: post #119
LarryMullins wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. AFAIK they do, but it is extremely challenging for teachers. Phone use can be very discrete, "aggressively monitoring phone usage" just isn't practical. And when teachers do confiscate phones the backlash against them is frequ…

Yeah that’s not what I mean. I mean make it a policy to not allow people to have their phones out in class. You can also block certain sites on school WiFi networks. I’m sure some schools already have something like this already. I don’t mean implement body searches.

> I mean make it a policy to not allow people to have their phones out in class.

These policies already exist but they're practically unenforceable. Individual teachers are incentivized to ignore it because enforcing these rules causes trouble for them. And even the most enthusiastic enforcement will fall flat; discrete phone use is trivial. Even paranoid proctors can't keep phones out of classrooms during exams; asking a teacher to do such policing while also trying to teach a lesson isn't going to work. This is what they're already trying to do (or were trying to do, before giving up) and it isn't working.

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

#125

Post by LarryMullins »

idopmstuff wrote: post #121
LarryMullins wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

Gym teachers telling kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs isn't teaching them. You can teach kids how condoms work and that STDs stay with them for life. You can teach kids that drugs these days can be laced with fentanyl and how to acquire and use fentanyl test strips. Those things won't stop kids from having sex or doing drugs, but they can certainly and do mitigate some of the harm. You can take a simila…

Teach kids all you like, however you like, they're not going to stop using social media on their own. It's a digital drug engineered to be addictive, and the kids are already hooked.

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

#126

Post by tw98521358 »

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…

[flagged]

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

#127

Post by tempsy »

LarryMullins wrote: post #124
tempsy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that’s not what I mean. I mean make it a policy to not allow people to have their phones out in class. You can also block certain sites on school WiFi networks. I’m sure some schools already have something like this already. I don’t mean implement body searches.

> I mean make it a policy to not allow people to have their phones out in class. These policies already exist but they're practically unenforceable. Individual teachers are incentivized to ignore it because enforcing these rules causes trouble for them. And even the most enthusiastic enforcement will fall flat; discrete phone use is trivial. Even paranoid proctors can't keep phones out of classrooms during exams; ask…

Ok

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

#128

Post by tw98521358 »

DueDilligence wrote: post #36
danielfoster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

.. it’s been a clearly focused project for over 4 years now. A colleague is on the board..A bevy of mental health experts are core to this - so due diligence. I don’t know the layout of the legal team, but was told they have put this thru the ringer - the goal has always been a legal precedent, then actual legislation, then adoption by other entities as well. The Portland School District has a parallel lawsuit as wel…

If they spent an equivalent amount of effort on figuring out how to manage the busses out offer classes to talented kids all the residents would be better off

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

#129

Post by tw98521358 »

ryan93 wrote: post #72
DueDilligence wrote: post #20

.. as a Seattle dad .. I fucking love this awkward yet clearly precedent-setting case. I know most of the board and the majority of us are fed up and taking the power we have to task and accountability. This has been in the works for over four years and we know the end game: new laws, adopted by other cities and states. .. it’s been a clearly focused project for over 4 years now. One of my friends is on the board. I…

Both you as a parent and the board had the power to stop children from using social media; or at least severely restrict it. Yet you choose to waste years on a very low probability lawsuit?

[flagged]

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

#130

Post by roody15 »

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…

Sadly this what happens with the “equity” push is public schools. There is no way to have “equalized” outcomes without dumbing down the content. This means less advanced courses.

It’s sad because somehow the idea of equal opportunity has been replaced with equalized outcomes in education.

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