{"id":99846,"date":"2026-02-23T19:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/894887940"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:19:23","slug":"social-media-case-puts-tech-leaders-under-the-microscope-for-harms-against-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/23\/social-media-case-puts-tech-leaders-under-the-microscope-for-harms-against-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media case puts tech leaders under the microscope for harms against children"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES (BP) \u2013 A court case over social media\u2019s addictive properties is the first in a series in the coming months, fueling discussions over technology\u2019s proper place in society and parental responsibilities for hedging its influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cK.G.M.\u201d is a young woman among many suing several social media companies. She claims that watching YouTube from the time she was 6 and having accounts with Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok by 14 led to her addiction and bouts of physical and emotional harm.<\/p>\n

Snap, which owns Snapchat, and TikTok settled in January. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified last week, pushing back against claims that Instagram was intentionally harmful to children.<\/p>\n

The case that brought several school districts as fellow plaintiffs points to internal documents<\/a> that include Meta researchers referring to Instagram as \u201ca drug \u2026 we\u2019re basically pushers\u201d and a TikTok report stating that \u201cminors do not have executive mental function to control their screen time.\u201d Snapchat executives said users have an \u201caddiction [with] no room for anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose book \u201cThe Anxious Generation\u201d has become an oft-cited work for student ministry leaders, addressed the case on a recent podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s never a consumer product that hurts so many kids, but it turns out that I vastly underestimated the harm because I focused on mental illness,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd what I now came to see, what I\u2019ve come to see since the book came out, is that the far larger harm is the destruction of the human ability to pay attention.\u201d <\/p>\n

During the interview, Haidt happened to have comments from social media leaders on his screen and began reading one.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompulsive usage correlates with a slew of mental health effects like loss of analytical skill, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy and increased anxiety,\u201d he read from a TikTok report. \u201cIt interferes with personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work\/school responsibilities and connecting with loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Other reports, from TikTok alone, refer to addiction and optimizing for engagement, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many others where they talk about addiction [and] how they optimize for engagement. And that\u2019s just from TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suit is one of three making up the JCCP 5255<\/a> social media cases. The other two are scheduled for March 9 and May 11. They occur in an atmosphere where 20 states have enacted laws concerning social media and children. Additionally, Australia became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, with Denmark and France considering similar regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith many children gaining unsupervised access to the internet at younger and younger ages, there has been an explosion in awareness of the harms this is bringing to many children,\u201d said the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission on a page devoted to resources<\/a> for protecting children online.<\/p>\n

The trade of textbooks for laptops and tablets in schools was expected to generate brighter students. But Gen Z is the first generation to test as cognitively less capable<\/a> than their predecessors at the same age, and screens are the primary factor, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath recently told Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s a fun experiment you can try,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cTake any state [National Assessment of Educational Progress] data [and] compare that to when that state adopted one-to-one technology widely, and watch what happens. The NAEP data<\/a> will plateau and then start to drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case is getting more consideration as Big Tech\u2019s Big Tobacco Moment<\/a>. Horvath\u2019s opening comments to Congress referenced the importance of something being in its proper place, rather than in control.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than determining what we want our children to do and gearing education towards that, we are redefining education to better suit the tool. That\u2019s not progress; that is surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n

The documents are the proof, Haidt told<\/a> CNN\u2019s Fareed Zakaria, that tech leaders were aware of what they created.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew \u2026 that they were addicting kids,\u201d he said. \u201cThe program was designed to be addictive. Instagram was designed to be addictive. They know they are addicting kids [and] they reward their engineers for increasing engagement. \u2026 We know that they did this on purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now, finally, for the first time in all of their history, they are facing a jury and are going to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… coming months, fueling discussions over technology<\/span>\u00e2\u0080\u0099s proper place in society … state adopted one-to-one technology<\/span> widely, and watch what … getting more consideration as Big Tech<\/span>\u00e2\u0080\u0099s Big Tobacco Moment. … \u00e2\u0080\u0099s Fareed Zakaria, that tech<\/span> leaders were aware of what …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}