Trending
A lawsuit filed by the Forest Hills School District against multiple social media platforms has been transferred to the U.S. District Court for Northern California, where it will be litigated along with at least 86 other civil actions.
Forest Hills has joined other Pennsylvania school districts in suing many of the most popular media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram,TikTok and YouTube for the alleged harm caused to young people by adopting algorithms that not only captivate the attention of the nation's teens and preteens but increasingly cause them "anxiety, depression and other mental health issues."
The Forest Hills lawsuit cited one expert who indicated the schools don't have enough mental health therapists to care for children experiencing these issues.
According to the lawsuit, many students, due to their addiction to social media, are less likely to attend school, are more likely to engage in substance abuse and to act out.
The Forest Hills civil action even quotes President Joe Biden in his call to "hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they're conducting on our children for profit."
Attorney Ronald Repak, associated with the law firm of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham of Butler, convinced Forest Hills to join with other school districts in western Pennsylvania in suing the tech giants.
The lawsuits are seeking funds to provide needed mental health services for students suffering depression, stress and anxiety -- the most prevalent obstacles to learning.
The Forest Hills lawsuit stated, "most middle school and high school students also fail to get enough sleep on school nights, which contributes to poor academic performance.
"These negative mental health outcomes are also the most common symptoms of excessive social media use," according to the Forest Hills petition.
Aside from hiring more personnel to address the mental health issues of students, they propose increased training of teachers on how to help students experiencing issues.
Another need is the hiring of disciplinary personnel to address increased bullying that occurs over social media.
Attorneys Thomas W. King and Thomas E. Breth of Repak's firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of Forest Hills in the federal District Court in Johnstown.
In the last two weeks, the lawsuit has been transferred to the Northern California courtroom of the U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
The transfer order not only included Forest Hills in Cambria County but also districts covering the Brownsville, Blackhawk, Mount Lebanon, Moniteau, Seneca Valley and Burgettstown school districts.
The Forest Hills lawsuit charges that 90% of children ages 13 to 17 use social media. Also, it was reported the popularity of social media extends to even younger children, with 38% of those between 8 and 12 years of age using social media.
The lawsuit claims the most popular platform among the young is YouTube.
In one study it was determined that some teenagers "never stop looking at social media," the lawsuit reported.
Ironically, the lawsuit concluded that despite the massive import of social media in their lives "most minors do not enjoy it."
One study found only 27% of the boys and 42% of the girls ages eight to 18 enjoyed social media "a lot."
While social media allegedly has an impact, some of it negative, on the young, many of the problems spill over into the school environment, according the superintendent of Forest Hills, David Lehman, who discussed the situation in a prior interview.
He noted relationship issues can become a school problem and sometimes social media urges or even dares younger people to breach conformity.
The Forest Hills lawsuit noted "schools are struggling to provide adequate mental health services because of the increase in students seeking these services.
"More than two thirds of the public schools reported an increase in the percent of students seeking mental health services from school since the start of the (COVID-19) pandemic," the lawsuit stated.
Repak said this week that the next stage in the process will be the legal process of discovery, which involves the taking of depositions from possible witnesses, review of electronic data that may be appropriate to the issues and collection of relevant data from the school districts.
Following discovery, the presiding judge (Rogers) will begin pretrial conferences.
Repak believes that this type of process can lead to meaningful changes in the way social media serves the public, including the nation's young people.
He predicted that many more Pennsylvania school districts will join in the pending multidistrict litigation against the social media giants.