Howard County schools sue social media companies over impact to student mental health

BALTIMORE -- Howard County Public Schools has filed a lawsuit against several social media companies, alleging their products are detrimental to its student body's mental health, a spokesperson for the district said Friday.

The school district joins Harford County schools - which announced its lawsuit yesterday - along with a slew of other school districts that previously filed lawsuits this year

The defendants in the lawsuit are Meta, Google, ByteDance, and Snap Inc. - the parent companies behind Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat. 

The lawsuit alleges that the platforms are both addictive and exploitative in nature, and make it difficult for the school system to provide adequate mental health resources to its body of nearly 60,000 students.  

"Across the nation, school systems like Howard County encounter the difficulty of catering to students' needs while providing an exceptional education and cultivating a positive learning environment," said Philip Federico, an attorney representing the school board. "This lawsuit is an effort to make social media companies liable for their contribution to the mental health crisis in young people, and to reimburse the Howard County Public School System for the financial strain caused by the defendants' exploitative platforms."  

The district said it's seeing increased rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation among students. As a result, officials say the district has had to reallocate funds for educational needs in order to combat the harms from social media

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called last month for stronger guidelines for social media use among children and teens, pointing to a growing body of research that the platforms may pose what he described as a "profound risk" to young people's mental health.  

The lawsuit is at no cost to taxpayers, officials said, because the firms representing them work on a contingency basis.