Last month, Meta, which is the mother company of Instagram, was sued by 42 U.S. states claiming that it is hooking children and is the “new tobacco” for them.
Colorado and California led a joint lawsuit against the company, saying that it psychologically manipulates children into compulsive and extended use of the sites.
This case proves to be monumental because this sets guidelines for how content is shown on all social media sites across the web and how they protect children that view content on the sites.
“I think that very good things can come from this lawsuit,” junior Tristan Wilson said, “I think that it will help children and teens with their mental health if restrictions are put in place on the content that people view.”
To many users of Instagram and social media in general, the infinite scrolling abilities of various platforms has negative effects on users simply because they tend to compare themselves to what they see on social media.
“It hasn’t negatively affected my mental health personally, but I can see how people could be affected by the infinite amounts of content that can be consumed on social media,” junior Melanna Fillis said.
Although Instagram and Meta certainly won’t go away as a result of this suit, it will see significant change in the way people take in the media.
“I wouldn’t like to see it change too much because I use it to communicate with some of my friends and family and I think it’s fine the way it is,” senior Michael Fliss said.
