Jun. 1—Harford County Public Schools filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Meta, Google, ByteDance, and Snap Inc., arguing the social media giants' addictive platforms are increasing the youth mental health crisis in its student body of nearly 40,000 children, while placing an increasingly large burden on the school system to provide adequate and essential mental health resources.

The county school system joins school districts across the country in accusing the companies of designing their platforms to target and addict children. The lawsuit also says the advertising-based business models of the companies enable them to make huge profits off that addiction by promoting their Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok platforms to children, according to a news release.

"The algorithms driving these platforms are designed to exploit young users' brains in a way comparable to nicotine used to manipulate users into staying on the platform as long as possible" the release said. "The social media platforms hijack tweens' and teens' compulsion to connect and feel accepted. The school district alleges that defendants have known about these negative impacts but have continued to prioritize profit over the safety and well-being of children."

"For too long these companies have exploited developing minds, contributing to a youth mental health crisis nationwide," said Bernard Hennigan, Harford County Public Schools' executive director of student services, in the news release. "Schools feel the burden when kids come to school struggling to focus, depressed and in need of intensive mental health services.

"We want our kids to be happy and healthy in order to learn and receive the best education they can. But our students and kids across the country are facing unprecedented mental health and learning struggles triggered by addiction to social media and its harmful algorithms and features. These companies must be held accountable for their piece in this youth crisis."

The school system said it is challenged with providing sufficient mental health resources to its student body as rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation continue to climb.

Officials did not provide any specific data on student mental health issues in its schools.

"This lawsuit seeks two things: force social media companies to make changes to their platforms for the well-being of our kids, and hold these mega-social media companies accountable for the high costs associated with addressing the mental health problems impacting our students," said Harford County Public Schools Board of Education president Carol Mueller. "Schools across the country, just like here in Harford County, are struggling to keep up with student needs while also providing high-quality education and a good learning environment. We need the support and long-term funding to remove the financial burden from taxpayers and instead place it on the companies substantially contributing to and benefiting from this crisis."

Harford County Public Schools is represented in the lawsuit by Baird Mandalas Brockstedt Federico & Cardea of Baltimore and Delaware, and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, co-lead counsel in the nationwide multi-district litigation against the companies. The firms work on a contingency basis, meaning there will be no cost to taxpayers, the news release said.