Dr. Katherine Kuhlman and Asra Nomani discuss the concerns social media platforms raise for parents on ‘Fox Business Tonight.’
The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) has filed a lawsuit against addon inc and Meta Platforms Inc., formerly Facebook – on behalf of the family of a 15-year-old girl who was allegedly hospitalized for psychiatric episodes related to her social media addiction.
The girl named in the lawsuit as MK was not allowed to use social media until she turned 14, at which point she got a new phone that could support the Snapchat and Instagram apps. The mother of the victim and plaintiff, Brittney Doffing, alleges that her daughter quickly developed a severe addiction to the apps.
“These social media companies are aware of the flaws and addictive properties of their platforms and did not adequately design their products to protect minor users from harm,” Matthew Bergman, founder of SMVLC, said in a statement. “Meta Platforms and Snap must be held accountable for the inaction and deliberate addictive design of these social media platforms that prey on vulnerable children.”
Logos of various social media apps are displayed on an iPhone screen on Oct. 6, 2021. (Photo illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images)
Doffing accuses social media platforms of negligence, having flawed designs, failing to warn users of the physical and mental harm that can come from using social media, and sexual discrimination for exposing her daughter to “harmful content, advertising, and recommendations based on their female status. gender.”
LAWSUIT ACCUSES SNAPCHAT OF ‘DEFECTIVE DESIGN’ AND ‘NEGLIGENCE’ AFTER CT GIRL, 11, DIES BY SUICIDE
Before March 2020, when MK turned 14, he was attending school regularly and passing classes. Two weeks after he got a phone and started using Snapchat and Instagram, “MK showed little interest in anything other than viewing and posting to the Instagram and Snapchat apps,” and his academic achievements suffered, according to the complaint. .
MK allegedly began sleeping less due to her addiction and was “hospitalized twice for psychiatric episodes” after her mother tried to restrict her use of social media.
In this photo illustration, a girl plays with her smartphone while eating on May 3, 2021 in Bonn, Germany. (Ute Grabowsky/Photothek via Getty Images)
The teen “subsequently developed an eating disorder and engaged in periodic crash diets followed by binge eating” due to “recommendations and content” presented to her by the apps, according to the lawsuit.
Additionally, “numerous” male users “requested sexually exploitative content and acts numerous times” from MK
Bergman filed a similar lawsuit against Snap and Meta last week on behalf of the family of an 11-year-old Connecticut girl, Selena Rodriguez, who killed herself on July 21, 2021. The attorney, who has worked as a personal injury attorney for 30 years before initiating the SMVLC, he believes that companies should be held accountable for the suffering they allegedly caused plaintiffs.
This illustration image taken on January 15, 2021 shows the Snapchat logo in front of the silhouette of a hand holding a smartphone. (STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The lawsuits point to a growing mental health crisis among America’s youth that appears to be related to the rise of technology and social media.
INSTAGRAM STRENGTHENS PROTECTIVE MEASURES FOR TEENAGERS AHEAD OF SENATE HEARING
About 45% of high school students said they used a social media platform daily, and 24% said they were online “almost constantly,” according to a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center.
US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new Surgeon General Notice in December 2021 warning of a growing youth mental health crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic. Early estimates for 2020 show more than 6,600 suicide deaths among young Americans ages 10 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT FOX BUSINESS
Emergency room visits for suicide attempts among adolescent girls, in particular, increased by 51% during the pandemic, and ER visits among teen boys increased 4% over the same period, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the data. Even before COVID-19, one in five American children between the ages of 3 and 17 suffered from mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral disorders, a CDC report shows
“People are coming together on this,” Bergman previously told Fox News Digital. “This is an issue that cuts across political lines, cuts across ideology, cuts across party lines. And on some level, we’re all parents…and all of us who have children want to protect our children.”
