‘We have to do more by our young people': Town hall addresses potential harm from social media

In the wake of the U.S. Surgeon General’s recent warning about the effects of social media on mental health, North Carolina’s attorney general said steps must be taken to protect children.

At a social media town hall meeting outside Greenville last week, Attorney General Josh Stein said social media can cause real harm to kids and teenagers and said companies profiting from its use should be held accountable.

“It’s not something we just made up,” he told about three dozen people who turned out for the May 30 event at Pitt County Community Schools and Recreation. “The U.S. Surgeon General has declared a youth mental health crisis. We’re seeing increased incidences of self-harm, of anxiety, of depression, of addiction. We have to do more by our young people.”

Stein is among 42 attorneys general nationwide who have filed suit against Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, for allegedly designing their social media platforms to hook users and deceiving the public by claiming that these platforms were safe for children and teens. Several school boards across the state, including Pitt and Edgecombe counties, have joined multidistrict litigation over social media adolescent addiction. In addition to Meta platforms, Snap, TikTok, ByteDance and Google/YouTube are named among the plaintiffs.

Stein, a candidate for governor, has hosted about half a dozen town hall meetings across the state to discuss the topic with parents, educators and local leaders. At this week’s meeting, hosted in partnership with Pitt County Schools, a panel that included educators and a local student talked about ways to address the issue.

North Pitt High School Principal Maurice Harris said education is needed to prevent the misuse of social media, which poses challenges for schools.

“As a principal, I deal with it every single day,” he said. A lot of our time is spent kind of combating feuding and confrontations that start out on social media. Our kids never have a chance to just go home and relax because it’s always in their face.”

Citing statistics from last week’s report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Stein said an estimated 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 use a social media platform. Among children ages 8 to 12, 40% are on social media, he said.

“The rules are you can’t be on until you’re 13 and yet 40 percent already are,” Stein said. “They’re seeing dangerous content, They’re seeing bullying. They’re seeing sexually explicit content. They’re seeing drug use. They’re seeing eating disorders.”

South Central High School social studies teacher Elyse McRae said she has seen social media use increase over more than a decade in the classroom to the point that it has begun to affect the way students communicate. She said teens spend an estimated eight and a half hours a day online, much of it on social media.

“I feel very passionately about the time they’re losing but also the human interactions,” McRae said, adding that more teens are experiencing anxiety, depression and loneliness. “We said, ‘We have social media; we’re all connected.’ No, we’re lonely because we’re not talking to each other and interacting.”

She said South Central enforces a “no phone zone” in classrooms to encourage students to engage with the material and with each other.

Stein said a number of school districts across the state have instituted policies against cell phone use during the school day. In some cases, he said, objections to the bans have come from parents rather than students.

J.H. Rose High School junior Sanjay Tirupattur said he realizes that he is more focused in classes where teachers do not allow cell phone use. But Tirupattur, who serves on the Student Health Advisory Council, also pointed to some benefits of social media, saying that it can help teens gain a sense of belonging and give a platform to those who feel they don’t have a voice.

PCS Lead Social Worker Kimberly Anderson agreed that social media has positive uses. During the coronavirus pandemic, she said, it was one of the ways social workers were able to connect with families to find out if students were experiencing depression or anxiety.

“We’ve seen a rise in mental health concerns because students are on social media so much and they look to that for identity,” she said. “Social media is kind of this double-edged sword.”

Kimberly Reaves, chief operating officer for Boys & Girls Clubs of the Coastal Plain, said many teens lack the maturity to make responsible decisions about social media use.

“I do think that we as adults are going to have to help with that,” she said. “As the adults, we just have to do the work.”

Reaves said club policy prohibits students from using personal electronic devices until they are at least 13 years old. While at the club, teens may only access the internet through the Boys & Girls Clubs’ wireless connection, which contains protective software to block use of certain sites.

D.H. Conley High School student Morgan Worsley, also a member of the Student Health Advisory Council, said adults need to redirect teens from excessive social media use, rather than ridicule them.

“We’re not as simple-minded as people may feel we are,” she said. “We’re not told, ‘These companies are plotting against you.’ I feel like if there was more communication about that, it would make things a lot easier.”

Professor Amanda Klein, who teaches courses in film and television at East Carolina University, said media literacy classes should be mandatory in schools.

“I think that should be as important as written literacy at this point because they are looking at more visual images, unfortunately, than words that they’re reading,” said Klein, a candidate for Board of Education District 8. “So we have to adjust.”

Stein said North Carolina is part of a group that is investigating TikTok for similar reasons cited in the lawsuit against Meta.

“It’s all about making sure these platforms do better,” he said. “Reducing harmful content, preventing young users from joining it through age verification, having more protections for young people’s privacy, these are all things they can engineer into the product if they chose. That’s what we’re seeking to demand that they do. We have a real responsibility to demand more and not allow corporations to exploit our kids and damage our kids just so they can make more money.”

Anderson said that protecting children is a shared responsibility.

“It takes all of us,” she said. “It’s going to be a joint effort. It’s not just one entity’s responsibility to address the issue.”