Social media plays a ‘significant role’ in the mental health crisis for young people says superintendent Nancy Magee

In an interview with Education Week, Nancy Magee, the Superintendent of San Mateo County's school districts, discussed the substantial challenges that social media poses to student welfare and district resources. 

San Mateo County, which oversees 23 school districts south of San Francisco, has observed an alarming drain on resources attributed to student mental health and behavioural issues, significantly impacted by social media use.

The county's response to these challenges was a legal one; it initiated lawsuits against the companies behind major social media platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook. 

This action aligns San Mateo with over 200 school districts nationwide that have taken legal steps, alleging that these platforms design addictive products detrimental to student health. The lawsuits target the companies' algorithms, which are argued to encourage prolonged and addictive user engagement.

Magee shared her insights on the implications of these digital environments:

 "We’re understaffed in schools in America. We don’t have enough adults on campus to really support the needs of students. And these complex needs are so much more different than when I entered the classroom to teach 35 years ago. It’s a completely different landscape because [students are] just sadder. They’re just more anxious.

They’re involved in this whole other digital universe that didn’t exist 35 years ago. And it’s invisible. The teacher can’t really see it. Being a teenager is a time of upheaval and major growth. Some people may say drama, but it’s exacerbated to the nth degree by the power of the social media platforms, because where you might pass a note in the old days to a friend and say something mean, now all of a sudden, if you do that online, the entire school or school district sees it.”

Further elaborating on the broader issue, Magee commented on the rapid advancement of technology and its societal impacts:

 " I welcome and embrace technology for learning. But the tools are accessible before society is able to manage it. Everybody’s talking about AI and all the unintended consequences and impacts of that. 

“We don’t even have an idea of what that is, so we don’t know how to make laws or how to create social behaviour norms around that. The same is true for social media platforms. The mental health crisis for young people is real. Social media plays a significant role in that. It’s not the sole driver of it, but certainly is a huge impact.”

Addressing the lawsuit's focus, Magee clarified, "The lawsuit is really attacking the algorithms that are being utilized on these platforms purposely to keep kids online longer, as long as possible, and to send them down the next rabbit hole, which taps directly into the addiction chemicals in their brains, and then they find that they can’t stop."

Social media companies have responded to claims…

The conversation concluded with Magee advocating for a balanced approach to addressing the challenges posed by social media: 

"Oftentimes, the answer to challenges in the world is education. And we do need to be investing more in the education of kids in their media literacy and their critical thinking skills and in monitoring their own mental health. But I think that the social media companies should have some accountability in that.”