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New York City has filed a major lawsuit against Meta, Google, Snapchat, and TikTok, accusing them of contributing to what officials describe as a \u201cyouth mental health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a 327-page complaint<\/a> submitted Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, the city alleges that the companies engaged in \u201cgross negligence\u201d and created a \u201cpublic nuisance\u201d by intentionally designing their platforms to keep young users hooked. According to Gizmodo,<\/a> the lawsuit claims the companies engineered features that take advantage of children\u2019s psychological weaknesses for profit, fostering addictive use of social media.<\/p>\n The city claims that Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube\u2019s parent company Google have \u201cexploited the psychology and neurophysiology of youth,\u201d knowingly creating systems that make their products addictive. The complaint says the companies understand that children and teenagers are in a \u201cdevelopmental stage\u201d that makes them especially susceptible to these effects, and that they use \u201calgorithms that wield user data as a weapon against children and fuel the addiction machine\u201d in pursuit of revenue.<\/p>\n The lawsuit argues that these companies \u201chave created, caused, and contributed to the youth mental health crisis in New York City,\u201d harming public health and safety and disrupting the use of public spaces such as schools. The complaint states that the city, its school system, and local hospitals have had to spend substantial resources \u2014 both financial and human \u2014 to deal with the consequences of young people\u2019s growing social media addiction.<\/p>\n The complaint cites data showing that 77.3% of New York City high school students, including 82.1% of girls, report spending at least three hours a day in front of screens, including phones, computers, and televisions. Officials say this has contributed to poor sleep and increased absenteeism from school.<\/p>\n The lawsuit also links social media to dangerous trends such as \u201csubway surfing,\u201d in which individuals ride on top of or along the sides of moving trains. Police data show that at least 16 people have died in such incidents since 2023, including two girls aged 12 and 13 earlier this month.<\/p>\n