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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

#81

Post by DueDilligence »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #11
ehhthing wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but this seems like the school board have no standing (in the legal sense) to be filing this lawsuit. I do not believe that social media companies have the duty of care to the school boards to maintain kids' mental health. Some of the things in the lawsuit are just stupid like arguing that social media causes them to need to do investigations into threats and such. You wouldn't be suing the USPS or…

>seems like the school board have no standing That was exactly my reaction. If Bob Ferguson (WA AG) wanted to pursue such a case, he / the state would have standing - and as far as I know, the school board asking the state and getting other school boards involved in such a case would be the more powerful approach. This is Seattle though, with its particular political leanings, and/or it could also be a bit of a Hail…

.. chiming in: Bob has indeed been looped in since this suit was on the table four years ago - and participated in person to the 3 meetings where this suit was on the agenda. I have heard his comments and discussion first hand. I know there to be at least two of his staff handling this suit. It is common for these types of well-executed lawsuits where the named-party is a public entity - for the relevant legislative office to NOT present a public statement until several weeks after filing the suit. I can assure you that the AG or representative thereof, will do so in the coming weeks.

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

#82

Post by Der_Einzige »

LarryMullins wrote: post #67
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...

Attending school might increase the suicide rate, but education doubtlessly has more than enough upsides to offset that harm. TikTok though? I don't think so. No upside of TikTok can compare to the upside of receiving an education.

How many educated kids are worth 1 suicide?

I mean this quite seriously because utilitarian body count calculations are made by the US government all the time, especially in the context of transportation infrastructure. What's a good multiplyer? 10000 kids educated per suicide?

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

#83

Post by danielfoster »

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…

Thank you for the link! The evidence of negative mental effects is definitely there. Labeling social media a public nuisance is an interesting strategy.

I am skeptical that courts will be willing to make a leap to follow this reasoning, especially when social media is so pervasive outside the school setting. Kids used to read magazines during class and this was never considered a public nuisance. Neither was Pokémon. These are arguably less harmful, but parents can also use parental controls to restrict access during school hours if they wish to do so.

It might be interesting to explore this through the lens of tobacco marketing in schools, though I’m sure this was already considered.

How many parents are using parental controls? Do they work? (I’m not a parent and am genuinely curious).

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

#84

Post by luckylion »

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 it you're hoping for? Prohibition, so people cannot use social media platforms because they're outlawed? I don't think that'll work, for the same reason prohibition doesn't work for anything that a large part of the population wants.

And what even is social media in that sense. Aren't forums social media? HN has a score and you and other will be told how "the community" values your comments. Sure, it's not emoji thumbs pointing up and down and a frowny face, but what's the difference? Should HN be outlawed because someone might attach their self-worth to getting upvotes? Should Reddit be?

I don't think the problem around social media is the "it's a feed full of trivial stuff that'll steal hours of your life", it's that you have to be on there if you want to have an active social life and not be an outsider. But if you take down facebook, instagram, twitter and tiktok, kids will find a new platform to flock to and to play their social games, bully some and make others celebrities. It's what they do, and now that the tech is here, they'll use it to do it.

I don't know how hard it is for today's kids, but I sure am glad that I went through puberty before internet was a big thing in my country.

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

#85

Post by finnh »

tempsy wrote: post #75
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 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.

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

#86

Post by Chinjut »

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?

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

#87

Post by zdragnar »

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…

Every school system sets its own vacation days, and home schooled kids don't share the same set hours or days as the local school districts.

I don't doubt that the harms are real, but I do suspect that you are putting an unreasonable burden on tik tok here.

What I'm actually most curious about is when did schools start letting kids have cell phones during the school day? I was in school roughly just before smart phones were a thing, but texting was starting to become popular if you could get a plan that didn't charge per text.

The expectation was your phone stayed in your locker if you brought it to school, and anyone caught with one during class or in the hallways during class hours would have it taken away until the day was over.

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

#88

Post by themitigating »

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…

There can be more than issue causing more than one problem. Thinking that problems must be solved in some sort of order is dumb on your part

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

#89

Post by themitigating »

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"

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

#90

Post by jeffbee »

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'm skeptical of your 30% number. Their reports seem to indicate current enrollment of 51608 compared to a peak of 53627, down 4%. That doesn't seem out of line with demographic processes.
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