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A growing coalition of Catholic schools in Ontario, along with a few secular schools, have joined together to aim a lawsuit at social media companies. The schools are going after some of the industry’s tech giants like Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat, specifically aiming at the “addictive properties” of social media use that the schools say has negatively affected the education system, as well as the rates at which children learn.
According to CTV News Ottawa, there were a variety of schools that joined the lawsuit, including the boards of schools both Catholic and secular. In addition, several private Catholic schools have joined the suit. It should be noted that Canada allows for publicly funded religious-based schools. While the lawsuit was launched by The Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB), there are now 11 schools who will join in the litigation, located in both urban and rural regions.
The lawsuit is the first of its kind and the outcome could set a major precedent for similar lawsuits across Canada. The boards have claimed that they have been forced to commit “significant resources” to contend with the damage that the “addictive properties” of social media have done to their students. The schools are seeking CA$4.5 billion in restitution.
A press release from Neinstein LLP, the firm representing the schools, claims that social media platforms are “negligently designed for compulsive use,” which has in turn “rewired the way children think, behave, and learn.”
It goes on to note that educators have been left to handle the fallout of such “rewiring,” which has led to classroom disruptions, made it harder to teach, and negatively impacted student’s mental health.
Safer social media environments
Thomas D'Amico, the director of education for the OCSB explained that it is the goal of all teachers to equip students with “the tools for the future":
"However, we recognize that social media products can impede our students' focus and hinder the development of key global competencies. That's why we are committed to advocating for safer social media environments for our students."
While TikTok has implemented one-hour time limits for users below the age of 18, many social media companies allow minors unrestricted access to their services. It was noted that 91% of Canadian students from junior high school to high school use social media daily, with 31% of them estimated to log five hours or more on social media platforms each day.
The claims will need to be proven in court, although it was unclear if the suit would need to just prove that social media systems are designed to be addictive, or if they must prove that these companies created these features with malicious intent. While Canada has plans in the works to ban social media use in schools, it may still be possible to link its use outside of school to learning, behavioral, and mental health problems the schools have had to contend with in recent years.
