EXPERTS ADVISORY
University of Michigan experts are available to provide analyses of proposed changes from the agreement involving tech giant Meta and 47 states and the District of Columbia.
Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to the states and D.C. to compensate for what plaintiffs described as social media addiction in children. The company also agreed to redesign products to protect children in the future.
U-M experts can also discuss the prospect of social accountability for tech companies and the underlying risks of leaving healthy social media use to individual self-control.
Elizabeth Kuzma, clinical associate professor of nursing, has regular conversations with her young patients about sexual health in a digital age.
“I’m glad to see Meta finally facing consequences for the harm its design choices cause young people. The evidence-based changes resulting from this settlement––time limits, removal of beauty filters, removal of like counts and nighttime shutdown hours––should have been the defaults years ago,” Kuzma said. “While it is important to celebrate progress, we can’t forget that there are other companies that should also be held to the same standards, and we must also not lose sight of other harmful programs.
“Generative AI now allows predators to scrape public photos and produce sexually explicit ‘deepfakes’ in seconds. This is a form of abuse that current laws and platform policies are not built to catch or prevent. If this settlement sets a new industry standard, that standard must extend to AI-generated exploitation, not just algorithmic addiction.”
Contact: [email protected]
Kentaro Toyama, W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information, has research interests in aspiration-based social development, theories of social change and data-centric analysis of social justice issues.
“This is a tremendous development,” Toyama said. “We might look back on today as the beginning of the end of tech corporations being cavalier about the societal harm they cause in the pursuit of raw profit. AI companies, beware.”
Contact: [email protected]
Jane Harness, clinical instructor in psychiatry and National Clinician Scholar at the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and health services researcher who studies how social media and entertainment media impact the mental health of young people, and develops and tests tools for reducing those impacts. She co-developed a social media minicourse that walks anyone through key settings on different social media platforms that they can change to make their experience more positive, and less risky. It’s available through Instagram and as an interactive webpage. She also wrote Social Media and Youth Mental Health: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers (PDF).
“We created free interventions for youth and families to support steps toward healthier social media use. Free in-person spaces where youth feel like they belong, as well as media literacy and digital citizenship education are also important and worth investment,” Harness said. “In the age of AI, mis- and disinformation, media literacy training could make a big difference for someone’s mental and physical health.”
Contact: Kara Gavin, [email protected]
Nikola Banovic, associate professor of computer science and engineering, studies how algorithms make decisions based on human behavior and how content is delivered to different demographics. He can comment on how the settlement could impact the use and design of social media algorithms, as well as how effective the proposed changes could be.
“Time limits, overnight lockouts and silenced notifications still treat harmful use as something to be managed through digital self-control, even though research shows that such interventions rarely produce lasting change,” Banovic said. “Under the proposed changes, the burden remains on children to exercise self-control rather than on Meta to redesign its platforms.”
Contact: [email protected]
Tiffany Munzer, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and a developmental behavioral pediatrician, studies the interactions of children, teens and parents with screen media of all kinds, and provides clinical care for children with developmental conditions and neurodiversity. She is an ambassador of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, was the lead author of AAP’s Digital Ecosystems, Children and Adolescents technical report, and recently wrote a policy statement called Helping Kids Thrive in a Digital World.
“This is an important first step in ensuring digital design is more aligned with teens’ needs and well-being, but needs additional action and regulation to ensure the rules are being enforced,” Munzer said.
Additional AAP resources she recommends for families:
- Conversation Starters for Families About Media
- Digital Design Guide: A Youth-Led Guide to Age-Appropriate Digital Design
Contact: Beata Mostafavi, [email protected]
Stephanie Preston, professor of psychology, studies how people process others’ emotions and how this affects the help they offer.
“Humans evolved to be social, but we find ourselves in a new world where the very development of the human brain is being altered by technology,” Preston said. “Someone has to monitor and regulate foreseeable problems like grooming, identity scams, shortened attention spans, mental health problems from the constant social comparison, and the myriad other impacts of living inactive and alone, mindlessly scrolling.”
Contact: [email protected]
Source: https://news.umich.edu/meta-settles-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-u-m-experts-available-to-comment/