Ontario school boards sue social media giants for $4.5B
cbc.caI often feel very hopeless about this. As an adult, I have to put a non insignificant portion of my brain and willpower to fight against social media addition. I have Twitter, use it rarely. I have instagram and have both a business and a personal account. I’ve always prided myself in never giving it any of my time. It was dormant for almost a decade and my friends called me a social hermit. I liked it. Then I started taking a peek, and noticed myself sinking deeper and deeper. I enabled the timer and I ignore it every time. I’m likely going to have to delete the app. I won’t even dare install or signup to TikTok. I use HN because I actually get a lot of value from it. Great dev tool recommendations, it’s a great GitHub repo discovery tool, product ideas, I learn a lot and I get to hear/read from many startup founders.
From this experience I know kids have no hope. I mean none. And I think we all know this, and Zuck knows this, I mean everyone. So now when we argue agains regulation we’re just regurgitating things like “rights”, “free speech”, “section 230”, etc. but what do we owe do the social contract that makes us better without sabotaging future generations? What is the actual, practical solution that does not take 2 generations to improve 1%?
I know that an actual solution will hurt a lot of companies, a lot of revenue and forecasts will disappear. But should that sometimes not be the solution? It certainly is for less protected/influential people.
Yeah, agreed. Being part of the noosphere, being connected to the world: it is amazing. It's epic. Our local experiences often pale in compare.
I have no idea what kind of legal solutions people would propose to forcibly disconnect people from the newly arrived noosphere. Maybe we can show harm but there's lots of things people do to themselves & with their lives that are less than sub-optimal for them. We can scare ourselves into believing the harm is too great here, into being scared enough to rescind our liberty to connect, but rarely do I see an analysis that's honest enough to admit that the underlying problem is that we are connected. You would have to work enormously hard to convince me that reshuffling how we connect is going to not still be so enticing & compelling that the risk and harm goes away.
> I use HN because I actually get a lot of value from it. Great dev tool recommendations, it’s a great GitHub repo discovery tool, product ideas, I learn a lot and I get to hear/read from many startup founders.
What makes you think people don't get value from facebook, tiktok, youtube, instagram, etc? There are tons of great material on tiktok, youtube, facebook, instagram, etc. There are tons of junk to waste time on too. You can learn computer science, math, languages, etc on tiktok, youtube, etc. Or you can watch cat videos. Also, people who waste time on tiktok, instagram, youtube, etc waste time here as well.
> From this experience I know kids have no hope. I mean none.
Most of the kids will be fine. Most parents care about their kids more than you care about them.
> ...future generations?
Future generations will be fine. It's you, me and the current generation that is doomed.
Sure, I also get value from social media, as a business. If I need to learn a topic in depth, I can very well look for it. Don' need to doomscroll.
Let's not kid ourselves. It requires a lot of discipline to only make the algorithm spit out useful content. It takes one slip, and all of a sudden your feed is polluted. I mean, you scroll just a bit slower on a useless post, and that is what it starts surfacing for you. Let's also not forget that it is impossible to set or reset your content preferences. You basically have to create a new account. HN does not have a content algorithm, is not engineered for attention. Most content requires reading an actual article and understanding a complex topic.
> Most of the kids will be fine. Most parents care about their kids more than you care about them.
Let's also refrain from personal attacks. You don't know whether my kids even have access to social media or if I spent the time to teach them how to use it for their own benefit.
> Future generations will be fine. It's you, me and the current generation that is doomed.
Sure, they're fine in that they will continue living and have their own definition of life.
I wonder why nobody is suing the food giants[1] for addiction to junk food and causing/accelerating disease.
[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-foo...
Maybe they should, but idk if junk food is more addictive than just food in general, ie sugars, etc. only problem I see if that just food is cheaper and more available than natural or healthier food. Solution here would be to produce healthier food more efficiently no?
Junk food is very similar to social media in that they are made specifically to be addictive. Sugar, fat, and salt are not bad things but junk food is formulated to hit all of those notes just right and be highly palatable. They are also usually high calorie which is something we crave from times when food was scarce. This doesn't even scratch all of the psychology that goes into making snack foods.
Obviously there are gains that can be made, but unfortunately the very act of making food more "efficient", inherently makes it less healthy.
Pretty much everything that makes food healthy, also makes it more expensive, more inconvenient, or both. Shelf life, processing, mass production - all make it cheaper, but less nutritious.
Healthy (and no trash) lunches are much easier to enforce in Ontario schools than no social media policies.
This is so important to you that you raise it in an unrelated conversation, what exactly are you doing WRT to this?
They absolutely should. It's quite clear that some food has been engineered to be addicting and is very bad for one's health.
> "Just take the phones away," said Gillian Henderson. > >"I don't think we need to sue anybody, that seems like a long, expensive process. Just take away their phones in class and give them back to them when they need them."
Tried, and failed. Even before these social media apps, school boards back in ~2006 (!!) already attempted to enact these bans.
They failed. Teachers don't want an additional item to enforce, and students are FANTASTIC at hiding them. Ask any millennial what it was like typing T9. We can probably still do it without looking.
I think it works tremendously well to take phones away.
Let parents and students know that if you’re caught with a phone, it will be taken from you and not given back until the end of the year.
It’s literally that simple.
Yes, the problem is the lack of willingness on the part of school districts to enforce discipline (perhaps compounded by the fact that public schools are often hamstrung by policy in this way), and likely a similar failure on the part of parents.
Troublesome behavior in schoolchildren follow the power law strongly, where a single-digit percentage of kids are responsible for >90% of classroom disruptions. School districts should be empowered to ensure that the kids who are there to learn are able to do so.
Jamming signals is way easier in that regard, but I don’t know how effective it is in practice.
A fair number of parents throw a HUGE fit over phone confiscation, no matter how it’s communicated. And count of parents concerned by a policy doesn’t always determine whose voices are heard in school districts—free time is a factor. These sorts always seem to have lots of free time…
I might be ignorant about this but why would it be up to the parents ?
Isn’t it up to the school to ultimately decide?
Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Parents who get nasty enough eventually break down the level of caring by the administrators… it weight of cost of pursuing an action. Not dissimilar to working the refs.
I see, I remember that being a similar situation in my school. But in my experience it was good enough for 90% of the kids to stop using their phones. Cause most ppl’s parents were too busy working or sided with the school at the time
Presumably the school administrators would only implement such a policy after they know the supermajority of parents are on their side.
Parents can make things very unpleasant for administrators. Which means they can make things very unpleasant for teachers.
Plus, they (among others) vote for the school board, and may run for school board.
Do you actively work in a classroom? As the earlier poster said — this can’t workably be “yet another thing” Teachers are expected to do.
Even if schools hired dedicated staff to police, remove, and redistribute phones it’d likely be ineffective.
Schools are hunting for solutions that need either Societal or Govermental led change.
I expect the wave of kids from internet native kids will be given access to social media at a much slower clip.
It's not "yet another thing" to get your classroom under control. That's step 1, before any other things can be accomplished.
Please go talk to a teacher, any teacher, in public schools. You’re drastically oversimplifying a complicated topic.
Most public school teachers I've interacted with are apathetic powerless bureaucrats. My experience in private school is different. We had corporal punishment and other severe punishments there, and teachers actually had control of their classrooms and could teach effectively.
My point isn't that teachers are to blame. I understand that the issue is systemic and requires support of the school, parents, and teachers. I just disagree that controlling the classroom is "yet another thing" for a teacher to worry about, when it is literally priority #1.
Usually in this case the parents throw a fit. Maybe school boards should sue the parents.
>Tried, and failed.
This may be an unpopular opinion in today's world, but if you can't effectively apply and enforce reasonable guardrails for the safety of the generation of kids you are helping to raise, then you are the problem. Who are the adults here, the corporations?
> This may be an unpopular opinion in today's world
Kids were swapping porn mags, smoking cigarettes and pot in the 70s and drinking underage back in the 30s. What "yesterday's world" are you talking about here?
The history of discipline in public education shows that the engagement of parents of teachers has changed drastically over time. Some kids doing bad things sometimes throughout history doesn't indicate otherwise.
Honestly i feel like those (except cigs) might be more healthy than phones. Those infractions you are talking about weren't happening 24/7 but in rare circumstances. All of them are forms of addiction.
In no sane world can you compare the percentage of kids engaging in social media with the likely 1% of children that owned porno mags in the 70s.
Your comment is completely disingenuous.
As a parent of a 9th grader in one of the plaintiff school districts, there is certainly a massive difference between grade 8 and grade 9. In grade 8 their school was very good at ensuring phones stayed in the locker during school time. In grade 9, phones are allowed in class. Nominally it's only for school stuff (Google Classroom, spelling, translation, etc.), but...
My 10th grade son struggles with his mental health (which was the case before he ever had access to devices). When he hit 9th grade, he was able to do nearly anything on his school-issued Chromebook. Mostly, he was spending all day every day watching YouTube videos, falling far behind on schoolwork. I asked the school to block YT and Discord. They did, but only after explaining that they believe high school students should be able to make those choices for themselves.
School devices coming home that the parents can’t manage is a real problem. A very dumb problem, but a real one.
Wow! That's insane to me. I feel bad for parents these days. A dude I work with who has a teenage son told me his son has a full on nervous breakdown every time he takes the phone away for a period of time, like temper tantrum style. I can safely say when I was in high school, if I was allowed to make "good choices for myself", I'd have been a full time donut eating, irc'ing recluse who never socialized and didn't know what exercise is. As it was I was already half of that despite the best efforts of my mother, who at the time I hated, and in retrospect I'm very grateful for. Wasn't easy for my mom with the internet becoming a thing in the 90s and me being an internet addict, but she did her best... I cannot imagine what it's like for parents today, I do genuinely feel for them. Good luck to you, seems like you're looking out for your kid, so kudos.
Some of my children's teachers use educational YouTube videos in class or as part of homework assignments.
> "Snapchat opens directly to a camera — rather than a feed of content — and has no traditional public likes or comments. While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence."
Snapchat has a long history of accusations regarding the damage to youth. It feels like there isn't much winning for these companies. I also wonder the effectiveness of going direct to social media companies, versus having the government pass laws about restricting social media for youth under a certain age.
Passing a law is one thing, but what would be the specifics, how would they be enforced, what are the penalties and who pays them? It's relatively easy to say, ban sales of cigarettes to minors, limit advertising, punish people to give cigarettes to minors, etc.
It's hard for a province/country to ban an app/category of app for minors, no? Maybe it's relatively easy to ban the app/website outright in your jurisdiction's borders, but that should be the last resort, if it is to be considered at all, since it is a huge blow to freedom on the web and really doesn't solve much since any manner of app can be just as dangerous.
It’s clear to me that we need laws restricting what’s allowed. We now have evidence that the apps are addictive. We have precedence restricting addictions (alcohol/gambling). It should then be possible to restrict companies from creating algorithms intended to addict. Of course it’s easy to say that at a high level. The written law will be much more challenging to draft.
We have precedence in restricting sales of certain substances to minors. A physical hand off has to take place in a physical place where a government issued ID can be checked for age verification. If you get caught breaking this law, you can lose your license to sell these things (and likely go bankrupt cause these things make a ton of money), because the government controls that, too.
This is in no way the same thing as policing "creating algorithms". We don't/can't go after Labatt for "creating beer" (it was tried...). I agree, writing laws is challenging, but even professional law makers can't get it right, not in the sense that they aren't skillful enough to get it right, but in the sense that it is not possible. We're seeing this with Porn Hub in certain US states. Local laws are just not effective in enforcing a multinational Internet service. To get back to the original point, this is why you might want to try something other than "having the government pass laws about restricting social media for youth under a certain age".
Beer perhaps is a poor analogy because it’s been around forever. A better analogy are drugs. We have approval process for drugs to safeguard against harm and addictions.
I believe that social media could be transformatively positive for society. But companies aren’t pursuing that, they are pursuing engagement in search of profit. We now know that engagement has significant harm in society.
It’s time to do ‘something’ and we need to start having conversations on what that something is, so we don’t just do the obvious and force everyone to submit a government id for access.
It’s time to do ‘something’
Well, like it says on the top of this web page, the Ontario school board is suing social media giants. You seem passionate about this, as do they, so it sounds like you might be interested to start a conversation with them.
This has about as much basis in science as gay conversion therapies. Or people saying they're OCD because of a habit. There is absolutely no science published in science journals (not some person's book or "treatment program") supporting the idea of "social media" addiction. Addiction has a meaning and when it is repeatedly mis-used and conflated with other things you end up with well meaning social institutions, like the Ontario school board, supporting very unscientific and damaging positions just because of a moral panic.
> There is absolutely no science published in science journals (not some person's book or "treatment program") supporting the idea of "social media" addiction.
If/when this is recognized in the DSM and ICD, it likely won't use the word "addiction". But in colloquial use, "addiction" isn't wrong. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addicted
Even the use of the word in scientific contexts isn't as cut-and-dried as you might think. Non-substance addictive behaviors in the context of DSM-5: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3858502/
And since you looked it up in the DSM-V you'll already know that the only behavioral problem of that type accepted by it or the ICD is "gambling disorder" (not an addiction and only grandfathered in as a disorder).
Mis-using terms in legal contexts like these should get the cases thrown out at the very least. But it is also dangerous for our society to continue to call literally everything an addiction in informal contexts. Our legislators and elected officials do not know the difference. And what they do in response is far more dangerous and damaging then the imagined problems they think they will stop.
> But it is also dangerous for our society to continue to call literally everything an addiction in informal contexts.
As someone who dies inside when people use "on premise" instead of "on premises", I understand your battle, my friend. Thank you for the reminder.
Schools should sue the parents for allowing their kids unfettered access to social media and smartphones.
But parents pockets aren’t as deep as the social media giants.
There was a related episode of the Hard Fork podcast about the subject https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/podcasts/hard-fork-apple-.... The conversation touches a lot on how peer pressure has a lot of power on keeping kids around those apps and this fact is just amplified by the fact that IRL interactions are very limited to younger generations compared to the older ones where you could just walk to your friends house and spend your whole day outside without too much adult supervision.
There's no doubt that there's an addiction problem on how these apps play with younger folks mind and as much as I hate a nanny state I really think government should have a mandate on what's allowed and what's not on online interactions for kids. Disabling monetization for kids content is probably the best way to hurt in the pocket of the companies without being too specific about what exactly is allowed or not.
Having this being pushed on parents is really done in bad faith at this point, I don't want my kids feeling the only ones left out because of their hippie parents.
I think claims like this have the potential to bring out a great deal of research into the public sphere about the effects of social media, but looking at the law firm acting on behalf of the plaintiff, I see it's a personal injury law firm with ~20 lawyers (https://neinstein.com/about), and they have taken on the assignment on a contingency basis. Sadly, I doubt they will have the resources to go up against the major tech companies for long...... but, assuming they have not taken the assignment on as a PR stunt, I am rooting for them.
The best I can do is lead by example and continue to hound my children to think critically and be mindful of the moments they find themselves in, with the hopes that one day it will all become a chore they're no longer interested in chasing and be born into real life.
Technology isn't the problem it's how it's used and encouraged. Society deserves the right to fight back against unfettered profiteering.
And your daily 15 minute conversation is nothing compared to the pressure they’ll feel from peers and the addictive loops built into the apps.
One child has been good and deleted one app, but slowly time spent in the other app has been increasing. She’s trying to fight it, but the addictive loops are too strong.
While the other child simply has no self discipline in this area and would spend all day on the screen if allowed.
These apps are too powerful to leave it up to ‘personal responsibility’.
How about parents actually watch their kids and prevent them from going on Tik-Tok and other social media sites? It's too easy to let phones do the babysitting.
Typical response from Liberal governments like Ontario: blame everyone else for your own problems (and sue them over it).
I just tried to put in a 60 min limit and my child freaked out. She claims her peer groups just sit and watch TikTok during lunch.
So as a parent I can make my child the one that stands out from their peers. And for many teens being different is their worst fear. So I don’t see how this comes down to personal responsibility of the parent.
Alternatively these apps have been designed to be addictive and evoke dopamine hits. Why can’t we make it the responsibility of the app companies to stop creating experiences that have massive negative societal impacts?
I don't see how these public schools have any standing. Parents for sure would.
I think the school board has pointed out they are on the hook for additional costs for services related to supporting the increase in these problems in their student population. That's financial damages which is usually enough for standing.
This seems like one of those things where it doesn't matter if you are for or against social media for children, it should be universally agreed that it is utterly inappropriate for the school board to be spending time and money on this. It's yet more insane mission creep from a government institution to a realm far beyond what is reasonable and expected by the families using the service and the tax payer paying for the service.
I have no love for social media companies, but as a citizen of Ontario this is also not what I want my tax dollars going towards. The public school system here needs to focus a bit more on improving the quality of our education system, and a bit less on attacking the private sector. Children's relationships with social media is the domain of the parents in my opinion.
The article mentions that the lawyers only get payed if they win the case, your tax dollars are safe
My comment is regarding what educators, board directors and the public sector are focusing their time and energy on. This is not what we're paying them for, in my opinion (at least it's not what I want them focusing on - I'm not sure why I'm getting down-voted for expressing this personal opinion). My comment has absolutely nothing what-so-ever to do with compensation for their legal representation.
> I'm not sure why I'm getting down-voted for expressing this personal opinion
Multiple school boards are so concerned about this issue and they are taking this extraordinary step and your opinion is just that "they shouldn't be" and "I don't want my tax dollars going to this". You getting down voted because you don't have a reason to be against this other than "my money".
> you don't have a reason to be against this other than "my money".
It's about roles, responsibilities and scope as well as the allocation of public funds, which is something that concerns everyone and is a non-partisan issue. We created a public education system in order to educate our children, presumably in order to prepare them for adult life. I'm being intentionally broad about that, as some people would even limit that to "prepare for employment", but I know there are a wide variety of views and opinions on that subject.
Filing lawsuits that target the private sector which are providing services that have little to nothing to do with education and pertain primarily to the private lives of students and families is very outside of that scope (in my opinion). I thought that this was quite implicit in "this isn't what we want our tax dollars funding" but apparently people get lazer-focused on personal wealth?
Sure, I agree that the school boards should be publicly calling out the province to solve this problem. But you were/are getting down voted because it sounded like a "my precious tax dollars" rant.
You explicitly said tax dollars going towards and bought up public and private sector in a thinly veiled politically charged nonsense comment. Now your playing innocent. In my opinion of course.
The whole point of this lawsuit is that their jobs are being made harder with no additional resources.
Would you prefer the additional resources required to deal with the issues outlined in the lawsuit come from “your tax dollars” or from those causing the costs?
It’s a classic socialize the costs privatize the profits situation where negative costs caused by private sector are paid for by the taxpayer.
Ironically your viewpoint if it were to stand will inevitably cost you more “tax dollars” when we have to pay the increased costs of dealing with these issues in schools rather than those responsible paying.
At least this is done under the guise of improving mental health for children (or at the very least aiming towards easing the financial burden of dealing with the aftermath of such).
There's a lot more to be pissed off about, like the OTPP pissing away $95MM on FTX.
I've recently been working in EdTech for K12 in the US.
I have to say, I cannot imagine being a teacher today.... I know this is a history meme but it's appalling how far behind teens are. Certain states have the audacity to require students to know 10th grade English and Algebra to graduate. A significant percentage are failing and being left behind.
That is to say some drop out at 10th grade, or some even get to continue on until 12th grade, where they will be unable to graduate.
Many are given 2+ more years to learn 10th grade English, and attempt the state exam 4-8 times without passing.
Want to be terrified? Go look up what 10th grade English is, we are talking some of the most foundational knowledge one needs. Themes and plots, character perspective, writing formal arguments... It's not something we should skip.
This is not like .4% of students, the total is nearing double digit percentages, depending on which state you are talking about.
Teachers now have to contend with students who's entire lives revolve around social media, and have had a phone / tablet in front of them 24/7 for a decade or more.
No wonder teachers keep leaving in droves.
Well, here in Ontario where teachers routinely make over 100k a year - check out today's sunshine list - the staff are not allowed to fail kids without written permission from the superintendent of the family of schools. I have worked in the information tech for the sector in the province overseeing digging us out of the dark ages.
Teachers in Ontario are heavily labour organized and you can get paid 150k to be an elementary school teacher. Bravo to them for pulling it off.
> Themes and plots, character perspective, writing formal arguments
You'd be amazed how far a writer can get in Hollywood without these skills.
> A significant percentage are failing and being left behind.
Do you have any theory on why that is ?
Definitely a multi-faceted problem, a big part is the pandemic, where some students just completely failed to do any work or learning while at home, creating a sort of tidal wave.
My second theory is we have a dopamine casino in our pockets now, and it's generally more problematic to self regulate and dedicate time towards your education. FWIW I believe parents are a big part of this problem.
Last of all, we have a growing conservative movement that is basically telling everyone that higher education is dumb and everyone should become a trades person. Definitely have seen a lot more apathy in general.
Last point is interesting. There is also a parallel phenomenon where social media creator is one of the top (actually the top in some surveys) "dream professions" among youth these days, displacing the traditional ones like pro athlete, doctor, lawyer, actor, etc.[1][2]
When I was in high school we were completely gripped by the notion that it was necessary to get into a good university program in order to have a (monetarily) bright future. If that mythology is broken, I can imagine it becomes very hard for the average teenager to give a shit about school at all.
[1] https://today.yougov.com/technology/articles/39997-influence...
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/more-children-dream-of-being...
Do students in the US not get held back if tjey dont pass their grades?
No, they stopped doing that a long time ago.
Conservatives would recommend against a non-STEM degree (or any degree which is unlikely to have a positive ROI).
The rate of single parenthood has drastically increased over the decades, which undoubtedly has impacted grade school success more than the “conservative movement” boogie man you felt the need to shoehorn into your argument.
Up to 2 years of pandemic era e-learning really seemed to cause permanent problems to a large chunk of students. Kids with stay at home parent did fine, kids with 2 working parents not so much.
This is the Canadian problem. You change your behaviour. We won't change ours. Instead of suing how about making laws to prevent Canadian children from not accessing social media till they are 16?
Because no adult wants to provide ID to access normal websites with tracking tied unambiguously to their govt ID