Social Media and Child Safety

It was recently reported that Meta was ordered to pay $567M in additional fines for an abatement program in New Mexico due to its failure to warn the public about its platforms' risks to children. The fines were in addition to $375M ordered against Meta for a similar earlier claim in New Mexico. This marks the largest child safety ruling against Meta and will have reverberations for social media companies in the future.

The court case ruled Meta acted as a public nuisance infringing on the health and safety of the public "knowingly" and "without lawful authority". The state built its case around these 10 components:

1. New Mexico is experiencing a youth mental health crisis.

2. Problematic social media use is a cause of the youth mental health crisis.

3. Meta’s platforms are widely used in New Mexico.

4. Meta implemented platform features that were designed to maximize engagement and time spent on its platforms, for all users and for teenage users in particular.

5. Meta’s engagement features encourage and facilitate problematic interactions between adults and children.

6. Harm caused by Meta’s products affects a significant number of people in New Mexico.

7. Although many social media platforms compete for the attention of New Mexico’s youth, Meta’s platforms rely on methods for optimizing engagement that disproportionately impact education and interpersonal relationships

8. Meta and its platforms provide a valuable service in New Mexico despite these harms, and it is not the only social media company impacting youth.

9. Meta knowingly designed its platforms to maximize engagement, including in ways that are harmful to teenagers, and does not adequately disclose the risks of harm to its users.

10. Meta’s conduct is a cause of and significantly contributes to the youth mental health crisis in New Mexico.

Deep dive into evidence of harm towards youth

The court case itself didn't provide any specific papers as far as I can tell, only references to HHS advisories, reports, and internal Meta research. The evidence was built on expert testimony, which the court found strong enough to state:

Even without the evidence and testimony that certain percentages of youth ... would not have those conditions but for social media use, the highly probable result of Meta's engagement optimization practices ... is that such practices would increase anxiety, depression, and sleep deprivation among teenagers.

The experts on both sides provided counter testimony on their view of the connection between social media and harm to youth. Dr. Jean Twenge testified that

most longitudinal studies confirm that adolescents’ social media use leads to depression ... and that experimental studies show that people who eliminate or reduce social media are less lonely and depressed, which further confirms the causal path between social media and teen mental health harms.

While the evidence wasn't listed, a 2022 study Social Media and Mental Health backs this testimony showing that the arrival of Facebook on college campuses lead to worse student mental health. The HHS advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health also listed this 2019 JAMA Psychiatry study.

Meta on the other hand pointed to a 2024 consensus report on Social Media and Adolescent Health which pointed to other factors causing overall mental health decline and a complex role social media plays in society.

My take

There does seem to a slew of evidence pointing to correlation between social media and declining mental health with teens and adolescents. Additionally, the ability for online predators to connect to underage minors is also blatant. Arturo Bejar, who worked as Meta’s Senior Director of Engineering in charge of the Protect and Care team stated:

the product is very good at connecting people with interests, and if your interest is little girls, it will be really good at connecting you with little girls.

But I agree with the primary conclusion from the Social Media and Adolescent Health report. There are benefits that are associated with social media including connection to friends and combating isolation, civic engagement, learning, and self expression.
The issue arises when we try to simplify the debate to net benefit or harm. Instead, its better to consider the piecemeal impacts and combat clear harms while retaining clear benefits. I don't think its helpful to see social media as a pure harm, just the same I wouldn't categorize screens and screentime as a pure harm.