Jim Roberts
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. will join a lawsuit against social media along with other school districts.
With no discussion, the BCSC school board voted Monday to approve a resolution to join in a class-action lawsuit to pursue what Superintendent Jim Roberts calls “the challenges that social media brings.”
The resolution also authorizes the corporation to work with additional attorneys who will represent not only BCSC, but other school districts across the nation, the superintendent said.
“A lot of time and energy is spent with the use of cell phones and other devices where social media is accessed and causes additional problems,” Roberts said. “Social media challenges have been labeled an issue that the country needs to take more time and dive into.”
Roberts is referring to warnings from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy about the dangers of social media on adolescent mental health.
Evidence indicates children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content to bullying and harassment, Murthy warned last spring. Social media may also cause children to compromise on sleep, as well as loose valuable in-person time with family and friends, Murthy said.
According to a recent Gallup survey of more than 1,500 adolescents, a little more than half of U.S. teenagers report spending at least four hours a day on social media apps that including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter). That amounts to 4.8 hours per day for the average teen, the company reported.
“We’re going after the major social media entities that have laxed rules in place in terms of how people can access them,” Roberts said. “We’re just hoping we can enact some changes in some of the rules and regulations regarding social media to better protect our kids as they grow and mature and their brains develop.”
This class-action suit is similar to what BCSC did in February 2022, when the school corporation joined a class action lawsuit against e-cigarette maker JUUL Labs Inc. and the Altria Group, which manufactures vaping products. Last April, BCSC received a settlement of just under $300,000 from JUUL.
The 15 months it took from BCSC joining the vaping lawsuit to reaching a settlement was “actually pretty quick,” the superintendent said. In contrast, the class action lawsuit against social media companies has far more entities involved, he said.
“It’ll be long down the road before we get anything done with this,” Roberts said.
