The start of the school year could mean a return to the hot seat for tech giants.
Published at 3:16 p.m.
Tara Deschamps The Canadian Press
Social media platforms TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat spent last school year embroiled in lawsuits accusing them of disrupting learning and contributing to a mental health crisis among young people, leaving teachers grappling with the fallout.
When students return to class in September, experts predict the conflict between technology and textbooks will be reignited — and perhaps even intensified — as schools and parents wake up to the impacts of social media on education.
“The start of the school year is happening at a different time than it was two, three, four years ago,” warned Richard Lachman, a professor of digital media at Metropolitan University of Toronto.
“It seems clear that as a society, we’re having more conversations about the harms of social media, while companies themselves are in a position where they’re not necessarily doing more.” The situation the education system finds itself in this year is a consequence of the proliferation of mobile devices that began in 2007 with the advent of the iPhone. That situation has been exacerbated by the capabilities of cameras, apps and social media, says Brett Caraway, a professor of media economics at the University of Toronto.
“I expect this problem to persist because smartphone penetration among teens has not declined,” he noted.
Hours of screen time
Just under 40% of Canadian children aged 2 to 6 were using a cellphone as of April 2022, according to Statista data. That figure jumps to 50% for children aged 7 to 11, and was even higher for those aged 12 to 17, at 87%.
That same year, 42% of young people aged 15 to 24 told Statistics Canada that they spent 20 hours or more per week using the Internet for general purposes, which included using social media, browsing the web, shopping online and reading the news.
Much of those 20 hours are spent scrolling endlessly through viral videos, posts and photos from the various social media platforms that have become household names in recent years.
Mr Caraway recently heard from a family friend about a 14-year-old who spends an average of six hours a day on TikTok. He found it mind-boggling.
“I don’t understand how anyone can have six hours a day to be on a laptop like that, but that’s what the platforms are designed to do,” he said.
“They make money by demonstrating to potential advertisers that they have high levels of user engagement. […] The platform is fundamentally designed to capture the user’s attention and hold it for as long as possible.” This can be problematic for teachers who are simply trying to deliver a lesson or for students who need to study but are constantly drawn to social media.
Studies have linked spending more time on social media to lower self-esteem, academic performance, and greater exposure to hateful, violent and adult content.
A 2018 study by the World Health Organization concluded that 6.85% of students were considered to have problematic social media use, which is when behavioral and psychological symptoms of social media addiction manifest. About 33.14% of students were at moderate risk of problematic social media use and 60% were at low risk, the study said.
Chasing the giants
Four Ontario school boards decided to take the matter to court in March, suing TikTok, Snapchat and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, for $4.5 billion. The lawsuit accused them of negligently designing their products for compulsive use and reprogramming the way children think, behave and learn.
In August, the group taking on the tech giants expanded to include 12 school boards and two private schools seeking more than $8 billion, organizers of the School Boards for Change lawsuit said.
The allegations contained in the lawsuits have not been proven in court.
Our children are literally falling apart and we have to spend additional resources to meet our obligation, which is to provide an education, this lawsuit is an attempt to make someone pay for that.
Brett Caraway, professor of media economics at the University of Toronto
Asked about the lawsuit and suggestions that social media companies aren’t doing enough to protect children online, Snapchat spokeswoman Tonya Johnson said her company’s app was designed to be different from other platforms because it tries not to pressure users to be perfect or popular.
“We care deeply about young people’s mental health, and while we will always have more work to do, we are pleased with the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence,” she added in an email.
Meta did not respond to a request for comment. TikTok declined to share a statement.
However, during a safety briefing TikTok hosted for media in July, the company outlined several measures it has taken to protect younger users. These included Family Pairing, which allows parents to directly link their accounts to their teens and ensure their teens’ TikTok settings are set to family-friendly. Pairing also allows for one-hour screen time limits for users under 18 that can only be bypassed with a passcode.
Banned in class
As students remain distracted despite the features, some provinces, including Ontario, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Alberta, will ban cellphones in class this year.
Many say it’s not a silver bullet. Even though students can’t use phones in class, they’re sneaking them into “every nook and cranny” of their schedules, Caraway said.
They turn them on as soon as they wake up, check them between classes, then return them home until bedtime.
Some teachers also resent the idea of them being kept out of class.
“Banning phones and technology has never been the answer for me because it means banning classroom discussion,” Joanna Johnson, the Ontario educator behind the popular account @unlearn16, said during the TikTok safety briefing.
Mr. Lachman doesn’t like the “abstinence” approach taken by provinces that have banned phones, but says the real problem is that social media companies are using a business model “to keep us connected for as long as possible.”
“If you really want to create something less addictive […] “Are you going to give young people a different interface? Are you going to give them a completely different algorithm?” he asked.
“Are you going to give them something that is designed to be less engaging, less one-click accessible, less based on infinite scrolling?”
