Despite its many advantages, the dangerous impact of social networks is no longer a secret to anyone, especially on children and adolescents. For these reasons, American schools have filed a lawsuit against the giant technology companies.
The episode (23/1/2023) of the “Al-Marsad” program shed light on the lawsuit filed two weeks ago by the Public Schools Association in the American city of Seattle against the giant technology companies that own “Tik Tok”, “Facebook”, “Instagram” and “Tik Tok”. YouTube” and “Snapchat”, with the aim of holding it responsible for the mental health crisis afflicting school students.
The complaint stated that the communication sites have turned into a source of public nuisance, because their content targets the brains of children and adolescents. Among the devastating effects I mentioned are anxiety, depression, eating disorders, learning difficulties, and cyberbullying, which has led to a number of suicides.
The 91-page complaint stated that the communication sites forced schools to appoint psychologists to monitor the behavior of students. The complaint also accused the programmers of these platforms of designing them to be especially addictive, marketing harmful content, and taking advantage of the developing brains of adolescents.
The impact of communication platforms on adolescents has become a focus of expert studies, and fertile material for controversy through the media. A 3-year University of North Carolina study conducted on adolescents concluded that about 78% of the participants check their phones at least every hour.
While 46% of these teens are on one platform continuously from the platforms included in the study, which means that they are directly exposed to the responses they receive on their photos and posts.
A study by the American Pediatrics Association (Jama) warned that adolescents’ frequent loss of social networks could reshape the way their brains develop, making them more sensitive to digital social rewards or punishments such as likes, notifications, and comments.
the opposite direction
In the US state of New York, a group of teenagers established a club to liberate themselves from technology and social networking sites, by dispensing with their smartphones and using simple phones that enabled the owner to call and send text messages only.
The teenagers called their club “anti-technological development” and decided through the club to move away from virtual life and return to real life and enjoy their time by practicing their traditional hobbies such as drawing, reading, music and others.
