[LarryMullins]

I expect that'll work about as well as gym teachers teaching kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs. Such admonitions might sometimes work for individual kids, but on the whole they don't work.

TikTok/etc is unlike sex and illicit drugs in that it's a commercial enterprise that is operating openly and can in theory be sued into submission. You can't sue a plant anybody can grow in their closet, but you can sue a tech company.

[idopmstuff]

Gym teachers telling kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs isn't teaching them. You can teach kids how condoms work and that STDs stay with them for life. You can teach kids that drugs these days can be laced with fentanyl and how to acquire and use fentanyl test strips.

Those things won't stop kids from having sex or doing drugs, but they can certainly and do mitigate some of the harm.

You can take a similar approach to social media. Gym teachers telling them not to use TikTok will obviously not work, but you can teach them about how their data is shared and monetized. You can show them examples of people who posted things on social media and had their lives ruined over it. If the leaders of a school district have adopted the approach that you just can't teach kids anything they don't want to hear, I think they ought to find different jobs.

As for the lawsuit, sure, you can sue a social media company? Will you win? Maybe, after extensive and costly litigation. Will those companies be forced to change their behavior in meaningful ways that will impact your students? Maybe, or maybe they'll just pay a fine and make superficial changes that last until the next lawsuit concludes in half a decade, then repeat.

And besides that, even if you manage to win and dismantle Facebook, TikTok, etc., you'll have an infinite number of other companies coming in to fill the void. You can sue a tech company, but you can't sue a general class of software. You can legislate against it, but at best that is a long, hard road.

[LarryMullins]

Teach kids all you like, however you like, they're not going to stop using social media on their own. It's a digital drug engineered to be addictive, and the kids are already hooked.

[brianwawok]

Parents control if they get a phone till 18. Generally the more upper class the parent I know, the later they give their kids access.

It’s not like kids are born with an iPhone glued to their hand.

[kube-system]

Sort of. Kids in the US can get a job and buy their own phone as young as 14.

[voakbasda]

Maybe we need to treat addiction universally and ban kids under 21 from owning a smart phone.

[brianwawok]

A kid cannot get or hold a job without parental permission.

[asdff]

Exactly. A student will sit there, arms crossed, internally opposing everything the administrator is saying because they've convinced themselves already its bullshit. They already think they will just find work as an influencer:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...