"E, meatball, meatball", said Little Red Riding Hood, "How come you have such big ears? "
"That's so I can hear you better.! ", The wolf howled., imitating grandma's voice.
"And grandma, meatball, but how come you have such big eyes? ", Little Red Riding Hood asked.
To see you better"
"O, Ali Bako, meatball, how come you have such big hands? "
"To hug you better. "
"But grandma, meatball, how come you have such a big mouth? "
"So I can eat you better! ", cried the wolf and jumped out of bed. He grabbed the startled Little Red Riding Hood and swallowed her in one bite! "
(Brothers Grimm: Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf)
Technology companies MetaPlatforms i Google (YouTube) must pay a total of three million dollars in damages for damages to the mental health of teenage girl KG M, a Los Angeles civil court jury decided on March 26. The 20-year-old plaintiff, identified in court documents by the initials KG M and presented at the trial as Kaylee, claimed that the platforms' design and encouragement of compulsive use contributed to her depression, low self-esteem and social isolation.
Kayleigh started using YouTube at age six on an iPod Touch, Instagram at nine despite her mother's attempts to restrict her access, Musical.ly (later TikTok) at ten and Snapchat at eleven. At an early age, she watched content typical for children: video clips about cosmetics, games and entertainment content - almost constantly, with automatic video playback and algorithmic "pushing" of content. She told the jury that the platforms contributed significantly to her depression: constant comparison to others reduced her self-esteem, she lost interest in hobbies and had difficulty making friends.
Plaintiffs' attorney Mark Lanier described the case as corporate greed -- the companies, he claims, were aware of the psychological effects of their products but continued to develop them for profit. Features like infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, and public like counting are deliberately designed to retain young users and encourage addictive behavior.
Meta's lawyer, Paul Schmidt, showed the jury a video of the mother yelling at her daughter, suggesting the plaintiff's problems were the result of family conflicts and not digital addiction, while YouTube's lawyers pointed out that Kaylee only used the "addictive" features for about a minute a day on average.
The jury concluded that Meta and YouTube negligently designed and operated their platforms, knowing (or should have known) that they posed a risk to minors, but failed to adequately warn users. Target should pay the plaintiff 70 percent of the estimated value of the damages ($2,1 million), and YouTube 30 percent ($900.000). Given the jury's conclusion that the companies acted with bad faith, an additional phase of trial with punitive damages is possible. The French newspaper "Monde" reports that the judgment may become a precedent for similar lawsuits, and the American law firm "Spencer" announced the consideration of 30 new lawsuits.
PSYCHOLOGIST'S WARNINGS
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The process was preceded by a series of warnings psychologist on the causal relationship between the intensive use of social networks and the mental health of young people. The "Washington Post" reports on a study in the US that followed almost 12.000 children and showed that the increase in daily use of networks during adolescence is accompanied by an increase in depressive symptoms by about 35 percent.
In a study on depressive symptoms and suicide, psychologist Jean Twenge (University of San Diego) analyzed national data and concluded that the sharp increase in adolescent depression after 2010 corresponds with the expansion of smartphones and social networks.
In his book iGen claims that teenagers who spend 3-5 hours a day online have a significantly higher risk of mental health problems. Twenge estimates that the risk of depression is higher among teenagers who use the Internet more hours a day.
photo: pexels / campus...
LIKE GAMBLING ADDICTION
Likes have been found to activate dopamine hits of pleasure and encourage addictive behavior, like gambling. Using the phone at night and losing sleep reduce concentration, increase the risk of depression and anxiety. Online harassment and the need to be constantly online increase feelings of loneliness. Idealized images of other people's lives, bodies and styles increase dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms.
Jonathan Heid (New York University) concluded that social networks are especially harmful for girls in early adolescence (11-13) due to comparison with the environment, cyber-bullying and algorithmic "amplification" of emotionally intense content. An experiment by the American Sociological Association showed that reducing the use of networks by 50 percent improves the perception of body and weight in young people.
LEGAL RESTRICTIONS
In the last decade, the USA, the EU and France have enacted regulations to protect children on the Internet: parental consent for the collection of data under the age of 13, a ban on profiling and targeted marketing. The Children's Privacy and Safety Protection Act COPPA (1998) in the US does not regulate addictive design platforms and only applies to children under 13 years of age.
The EU law on digital services introduces special protection of minors, prohibition of targeted advertising based on sensitive data, assessment of "systemic risks" and transparency of algorithms, obliging large platforms to prove that they do not harm children. A 2023 French law bans accounts for under-15s without parental consent and introduces age verification.
SCHOOL WITHOUT PHONES
France, the Netherlands, Italy and China have national bans on phones in schools. There is still no uniform ban in Serbia. While the draft law is on its way to the Assembly, protection measures are implemented through recommendations and school regulations. Around the world, research has been conducted on whether and to what extent banning the use of mobile phones in schools affects the development of students.
Research by the American National Bureau of Economic Research (National Bureau of Economic Research, "The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes") in Massachusetts shows that cell phone bans significantly reduce unexcused absences, contribute to better test results, especially in middle and upper grades. Research at the Canadian Carleton University (The Hechinger Report Carleton University) showed the same, whereby the improvement is particularly visible in weaker students.
A study commissioned by the Dutch government (2024-2025) found, as reported by Reuters, that 75 percent of secondary schools reported better student concentration after removing cell phones from school; about two-thirds of them reported a better social atmosphere, and one-third noted an improvement in school performance.
In some French schools that have introduced a wider ban, according to "Monda", teachers have noticed that students communicate more among themselves. Research from the Czech Republic has observed better class cohesion and a reduction in conflict between students.
IMPACT ON MENTAL HEALTH
As for mental health, the results are mixed. In a UK study (SMART Schools Study 2025), conducted among more than 1200 students by psychologist Victoria Goodyear, no clear link was found between school phone bans and improvements in mental health. The use of phones at school has decreased, but not the total daily screen time.
Research by the Wharton University School of Business in Pennsylvania, on the other hand, points to the unwanted consequences of bans: an increase in the so-called "FOMO" (fear of missing out), students' fear that they will miss something online and therefore be ostracized from society.
In some schools, bans reduce peer violence, but in others, they can lead to the transfer of conflicts to the online space outside the school, according to research by the American Albert Shanker Institute.
Candace Odgers (University of Irvine, California) confirmed that the negative effects of social networks exist, but they depend on the social context: family, school, peer group, genetics and socioeconomic conditions.
The report of a survey conducted in the USA shows how the ban on the use of mobile phones in school has affected digital addiction - 98 percent of teenagers attend schools with some form of ban, but they still spend an average of 1,5 hours a day on the phone. Researchers at the University of Birmingham came to a similar conclusion: the restrictions reduce phone use at school by around 40 minutes a day, but the effect on wider digital addiction is small.
A teenager's mental health depends on their entire digital life, not just a few hours spent at school.
What do you think should be done? Write to the address. "Vreme" is willing to publish your opinion.
"Vremena" survey: Protection of children on the Internet
Lawsuits against digital platforms in the US for causing depression in teenagers, legislative initiatives in the USA, France, Holland, restrictions on the use of telephones in schools in France, Holland, Italy, Kini,…
What do you think should be done to reduce distractions?, reduced digital addiction, depression, digital bullying and digital violence?
Write to us at the editorial address@times.on, we are willing to publish your opinion.
