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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

#71

Post by Auracle »

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...

In my experience, which in unfortunately way too much, people commit suicide when they feel trapped in a bad situation. It’s hard to think of a more likely scenario than someone that’s having a bad time at school. I hope every parent out there starts to offers up online schooling as “always an option.” It would have saved some friends of mine.

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

#72

Post by ryan93 »

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?

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

#73

Post by LarryMullins »

fleddr wrote: post #37

Had any of this harm been physical, everybody would be cheering to combat it. But because it's mental, it's "not real", right? Behavioral scientists can plot any metric against the last decade and it spectacularly deviates from what came before it, in a bad way. A seismic shift. It's a problem. A massively complicated problem where regulation will be tricky. For the record, even Zuckerberg himself has practically beg…

> even Zuckerberg himself has practically begged for regulation in response to issues affecting teen girls specifically.

I recall this being criticized as Zuckerberg cynically trying to create an anti-competitive regulatory moat around Facebook. Seems plausible to me, I have a hard time believing that Zuck has a single sincere and benevolent bone in his body.

But even if he has cynical motivations for proposing it, that doesn't mean the idea itself is bad.

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

#74

Post by richiebful1 »

grecy wrote: post #49

(Honest question, I don't understand how the law applies globally to the internet) Given that TikTock is Chinese, what happens if they lose a court case in the US? How can anyone force them to pay up or change their ways? I assume the only outcome is either "pay up" or be banned in that jurisdiction? (Assuming they lose) I can't help thinking this is like the all the three letter US agencies trying to force US law on…

There's plenty of TikTok assets in the US to seize. They have an office in Culver City, for example

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

#75

Post by tempsy »

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…

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 perspective given the newness of social media.

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

#76

Post by jbm »

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…

What is the school doing about evidence that attending in-person school increases suicide? That seems like a much easier issue to tackle and well-within their remit. (Legit question as you seem well informed about their current thought process)

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

#78

Post by vouaobrasil »

I fully support this lawsuit, and I also fully support society taking a stand against algorithmic social media and platforms like YouTube. Moreover, I am saying this as a content creator myself who makes money!

The effects of algorithms trained to make the mind addicted are too subtle and too powerful to leave it to individuals to make their own choices about a healthy level of social media use. Moreover, most people already agree that Facebook and YouTube are not really healthy.

If implementing manipulative algorithms were restricted and made illegal with extremely heavy fines, it would improve all of society, and everyone would be happier except the executives of such companies and the people being paid outrageous salaries to make such platforms addictive. As a content creator, if the amount of money I made decreased a little, I would gladly accept that if it meant everyone else spent less time on the computer.

I am sickened at tech companies. Although I love programming, and worked as a programmer, I have vowed to never contribute a single line of code that could support such practices, and I suggest all programmers to do the same!

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

#79

Post by Auracle »

I don’t doubt that some kids are negatively harmed by social media.

However, I’m a photographer that does high school senior shoots. I follow some of my clients, and the amount of support every single teen I’ve looked at gets on everything they post is astounding. It doesn’t matter what they look like, if they post a picture they’ll have dozens or hundreds of comments telling them how gorgeous they are. Even the guys get some, though not as much.

And yeah, it’s all a bit silly and vapid when everyone is saying that to everyone. You know it still feels good. I certainly could have used someone telling me I was attractive back in high school…as a guy the girl’s hints were a bit lost on me.

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

#80

Post by LarryMullins »

jbm wrote: post #69
LarryMullins wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an easy pretzel for teachers/school administrators to tie themselves into, because these people are on the frontline of witnessing the ways in which parents can neglect and abuse their kids. It's easy for teachers to fall into believing themselves / the state a better steward of children than their own parents.

I'm not sure if that is the case, but if it is, it is the educational equivalent of the police seeing everyone as a threat because they deal constantly with the law breakers of society.

It's not a perfect analogy, but I think it's very similar. Teachers have to interact with all students, not just the ones who have trouble, but the ones who have trouble occupy a greater portion of the attention of teachers. So teachers spend an inordinate amount of time dwelling on the matter of neglect and abuse. The saddest most depressing cases stay in the minds of teachers for a long time, while the normal well cared for students are soon forgotten.
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