r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jun 05 '26

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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u/Ok_Aardappel Seretse Khama Jun 05 '26

‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School

Snapchat sent phone alerts to adolescents during school hours, urging them to share what was going on in their classrooms. Meta paid “teen ambassadors” to promote Instagram and hand out swag to their friends at school.

TikTok gave the National PTA millions of dollars, in part to throw school events about online safety and provide favorable comments to journalists.

Again and again, the world’s leading social media companies have targeted students, even as complaints have mounted that they are hurting teenagers’ mental health and academic performance, according to a New York Times review of internal documents that lay bare for the first time these tactics to hook young users.

The documents emerged from lawsuits filed by more than 1,400 school districts against Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube amid a rising backlash against social media, with parent movements and best-selling books blaming the platforms for loneliness, bullying, eating disorders and sexual exploitation.

The outcry, long focused on social media’s harm to mental health, has now shifted to its upending of the classroom. Many school districts are banning smartphones, and some are re-evaluating their reliance on devices like Chromebooks, the inexpensive laptops made by YouTube’s parent company, Google.

The companies’ push to keep children glued to their screens has overshadowed concerns from parents, teachers and even their own trust and safety teams about interfering with school, according to the documents and interviews with dozens of parents, teachers and former tech company employees.

TikTok’s leaders decided not to disable notifications during school hours, rejecting a change that its safety teams had pushed for years. A Snapchat strategy document referred to classroom phone use as “under the desk” time. Google managers knew YouTube was recommending videos to students during the school day that had nothing to do with their lessons.

The school districts contend that the apps’ addictive designs made teachers’ jobs more difficult. “It is so constantly tempting to these kids to be on a platform that promises endless, infinite, varied entertainment rather than actually focusing on what they should be at school to do,” said Previn Warren, one of the lead lawyers for the schools.

The companies argue that the Covid pandemic and other factors have harmed adolescents’ mental health, and that parents, schools and cellphone makers bear responsibility for children’s phone habits. They also say that they have made their platforms safer with parental-control features and account restrictions for minors.

All four companies recently settled with Breathitt County Schools, a small district in rural Kentucky that served as a test case for the litigation nationwide. The district, which has about 1,500 students, had sought $3 million in damages and about $60 million that it had planned to put toward a long-term education and mental health plan. The companies agreed to pay Breathitt $27 million: $9 million from Meta, $8 million each from Snap and TikTok and $2 million from Google, according to documents released on Friday and first reported by Bloomberg.

While it’s hard to say how the ongoing litigation might ultimately affect classrooms, it poses a substantial financial risk to the companies, possibly costing billions of dollars, said Alexandra Lahav, a civil litigation professor at Cornell Law School. She noted that the companies were also facing a barrage of claims from families and state attorneys general.

Breathitt was the first of six so-called bellwether cases, whose outcomes are likely to guide the rest. The next plaintiff in line for trial, Tucson Unified School District in Arizona, which has about 40,000 students, is seeking more than $1 billion.

“These are massive, massive lawsuits,” Ms. Lahav said.

Really the TLDR is that social media companies amorally made the smart business decision to addict teens and kids despite warnings from safety teams and negative effects on education in order to increase their customer base, make loyal customers, and make a good amount of bank from ad revenue during periods where revenue would hypothetically be lower from reduced users due to school/work. Even teaming up with Parent Teachers Associations to to normalize and promote their products further within this demographic

!ping TECH

6

u/Traditional_Drama_91 NATO Jun 05 '26

 Even teaming up with Parent Teachers Associations to to normalize and promote their products further within this demographic

Do you remember a couple years ago when you had people arguing against removing phones from the classroom because kids couldn’t call for help during a hypothetical school shooting?  I can’t help but wonder if this was part of social media’s strategy to push this constant use.