America’s teens are in the midst of a mental health crisis, according to studies. With this consideration, they point out that between 2011 and 2021, cases of depression have doubled in this group and the only way to explain it is the impact of social networks.
This is indicated by Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University (California) and researcher in the field.
“No other explanation really fits as to why this situation exists at a time when the economy is doing well, crime is down, and virtually every indicator related to teenagers is improving,” Twenge stressed to NPR, the public radio in the United States. “But they spend much more time on social networks than interacting face-to-face with each other or sleeping”, he added to emphasize the isolating effect.
Some of this professor’s work is part of the arguments in the lawsuit filed by a coalition of 41 US states against Meta for fraudulently trapping children and deceiving subscribers about the security of its platforms.
In this initiative they claim that the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg manufactures its products with addictive features that hook and harm young users of the services offered by Facebook and Instagram.
This company also owns applications such as WhatsApp and Messenger.
The lawsuit, filed in federal and state courts, points out that Meta hides from citizens the dangers that its platforms pose to underage subscribers. They allege that the company deliberately labeled its products for users under the age of 13 when they are excluded by the company’s own policies and federal law. States want to force these networks to change features they say are a threat to teen users.
State prosecutors claim Meta violates consumer protections and alleged controls for minors. According to the complaint, led by Colorado and California, the company has created what the indictment calls functions of manipulating dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in decision-making and many other brain functions such as memory, sensations (emotion, affectivity) or communication.
The algorithm is what decides what each user must see when they enter Facebook or Instagram and they have the ability to direct the will so that the subscriber moves through these networks without limits, “infinitely”. These functions hooked the teenagers and, the lawsuit notes, Meta was aware that this would cause the self-esteem of the minors to suffer once they became addicted to these social networks. The prosecutors insist that this firm “designed psychologically manipulative products to induce minors to become compulsive users” and spread their fall “in dens of toxic and harmful content”.
In addition, they also accuse this company of violating the federal online privacy law of minors, since they illegally provided data from these subscribers without parental consent.
“Since this investigation began in the company, Meta has tackled how to strengthen the measures to support young people that were already applied on its platforms and worked to improve the experiences of the youngest”, replied a spokesperson for the company to deny any negligence on the part of the company and ensure safety.
Some experts compared this initiative to the litigation that took place in the 1990s over the lawsuits against the big companies in the tobacco sector. This led to the imposition of new limitations on how to market their products. In the long run it has led to a drop in cigarette consumption. And this is the aspiration, that in the future there will be fewer children on the networks.
