Twenty-year-old California resident Kaley G.M. used to spend 16 hours a day on Instagram, according to the BBC, neglecting her family to check on notifications. She started using social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram at age 6, and by age 10, she had already begun to obsess over beauty standards presented to her by those platforms.
On March 25, Kaley successfully sued YouTube and Meta in a court case about social media addiction, leading to discussion on how it affects students’ mental health.
Seventh grader Avery Bleiman, who says that she has a screen time of more than five hours per day, recognizes that social media is addictive by design, and agrees with Kaley.
“I think that [social media does] a lot of spreading people’s opinions. And people always see validation,” Bleiman said. “So if you see a video talking about something that is the new beauty trend of what you’re supposed to look like, you’ll just want to keep on watching so you can check if you have that or see how you can do that.”
Cate Eyler, an eighth grader who has more than 300 YouTube followers and posts singing content, agrees with Bleiman. Despite the fact that she is a content creator, she still recognizes the harm that social media can cause to students.
“I feel like it just becomes a muscle thing to just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling,” Eyler said.
Eyler believes that social media can both be helpful and detrimental.
“I just think it’s good to set limits for yourself, because it can be positive too,” Eyler said.
Middle school counselor Cindy Taketa believes that sometimes teenagers use social media to unwind, although other sources of relaxation are preferable to her.
“Some students actually prefer to be on social media rather than doing other activities that their parents would deem healthy,” Taketa said.
She still believes that instead of scrolling, students could be “reading… any kind of relaxation, you know, spending time with your family, person to person.”
Eighth grader Prahlad Shankar uses a shorts blocker on YouTube to curb his addiction.
“I really needed to stop using [YouTube Shorts], and there isn’t really a way beyond just getting rid of it all together,” Shankar said. “It’s really helped me extend my attention span.”
Shankar is a prime example of what Taketa wants in a student who believes they might have a social media addiction.
“If a student thinks it’s a problem, then that’s something to go off of, and I would just advise them to see… what are some small changes they think they can make?” Taketa said.