“These companies are targeting our kids”: The chair of the TDSB on its decision to sue TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat for $4.5 billion

The effects of social media on kids is a hot topic these days, with new research connecting the rise of smartphone-centric childhoods with soaring rates of mental illness and learning impairment. Now, the Toronto District School Board is one of five Ontario boards attempting to quantify the damage. A recently launched $4.5-billion lawsuit against the companies behind Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok alleges that time spent on these platforms has caused “maladaptive brain development, compulsive use, disrupted sleep patterns, behavioural dysregulation, learning and attention impairment” and more in the student population.

“Teachers are having to spend so much time managing mental health and safety issues,” says TDSB chair Rachel Chernos Lin. “There’s less and less time to focus on the curriculum.” Here, she tells us about the lawsuit, how social media is amping up anxiety and depression in the student body, and why the Ontario government banning cellphones in schools is not going to cut it.

The effects of social media on kids isn’t a new concern. Is there anything in particular that sparked this lawsuit? We’ve had enough time back at school after the pandemic to see how serious the impact of social media on students has become. Of course this is something we were talking about before, but during that time at home we saw students become even more reliant on these platforms. It’s clear to us that the problem is more urgent now than ever.

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What do you mean when you say “the problem”? It’s mental distress: difficulty concentrating in class, the effects of sleep deprivation, a significant spike in anxiety and depression. The percentage of students reporting an unmet need for mental health support has almost doubled in the last decade—right now it’s at more than 40 per cent. The TDSB is doing everything we can to keep up, including diverting $10.4 million in emergency funds to manage and respond to social media–related harms. Some of that money went toward hiring 16 social workers, 15 child and youth counsellors, 40 school-based safety monitors, 20 elementary vice-principals and eight secondary vice-principals. But we simply do not have the resources to keep up, and we believe the companies causing the problem and profiting from it should be held accountable.

Clearly mental health is an issue, but how can you be sure social media is the problem? Couldn’t young people today be experiencing depression and anxiety because the planet is on fire? The other new development is that, in the past few years, we’ve seen a growing body of evidence connecting youth mental health challenges to social media use. It’s literally changing the way their brains function. There’s also evidence to suggest that the companies behind these social media platforms were made aware of the harm they were causing and did nothing to stop it. Then there’s the fact that these platforms have become forums for violence and harassment. Twenty-two per cent of high school students report having been bullied on Instagram within the past seven days. A lot of violence and vandalism that we see originates on social media. Something like the “Devious Licks Challenge”—students vandalizing and stealing from washrooms and posting footage on TikTok—has caused a lot of disruption to learning and necessitated a huge amount of money in repairs.

In terms of the legal argument, are you saying the effects of kids’ social media use are costing school boards money and that you are entitled to compensation? That’s a big part of it. The amounts set out in the claim are based on the past and future financial burden of addressing social media–related disruptions, including the need for increased mental health supports, education on safe social media use, additional staffing, repairing property damage and extra IT resources. But there are also punitive damages based on our assertion that these companies have knowingly designed their products in a way that is harmful.

How so? These products are meant to be addictive. We don’t know exactly how the algorithms work, but we do know that they push high-engagement—never mind dangerous—topics such as self-harm and eating disorders whether they are searched for or not. A young person may look up something about healthy eating and suddenly they’re seeing posts about anorexia. It’s not as if the social media platforms have put up responsible guardrails and kids have found their way around them: these apps are working exactly the way they are supposed to.

Premier Doug Ford has called the lawsuit “nonsense,” opting to focus on strengthening Ontario’s existing bans on cellphones in the classroom. Now, school boards will also have to remove all access to social media websites from their networks. Problem solved? I applaud the government’s efforts to restore focus in our education system. Any action is progress. But it’s a multifaceted issue. I think it’s important to understand that while phones in classrooms are an important piece of the puzzle—one that the TDSB is continuing to address—the lawsuit is dealing with a much larger problem: the impact of constant social media use on young brains. TDSB teachers report that policing phone use in class is a huge distraction, but even if kids weren’t on their phones in class, we know that so many of them are checking TikTok before they’re out of bed and for hours in the evening. Their ability to focus is being harmed by the time they spend on social media outside of school. I get that the premier and his government are focused on reading, writing and math, but if kids are suffering mentally, their ability to learn suffers. He’s also said that the lawsuit is a waste of resources. The cost of the lawsuit itself is being covered by the firm that’s representing us, Neinstein LLP. No taxpayer dollars are being spent on it, and Neinstein will only take a percentage of the settlement if we win.

Where are parents in all of this? A lot of the reaction to the lawsuit on social media seems to be along the lines of: “Parents aren’t doing their jobs.” That perspective may be coming from people who aren’t parenting kids in this age group. I have a teenager, and we have rules: no phone at the dinner table, no phone in her room at night. But it’s not easy to enforce them. She’ll slip the phone out of her pocket all of a sudden, or my husband or I will need to take a call, and then we’re sending mixed messages. A lot of parents are fed up, frustrated and really scared. I’ve heard from a lot of them since we launched the lawsuit, saying how grateful they are. Certainly parents need to be educated on the dangers of these apps, but blaming them is not the answer. We need to put the blame on the companies that are targeting our kids.

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Another dismissive attitude you see in these conversations is that kids will be kids and this is just the standard generational pearl-clutching. We used to smoke in the bathrooms, and now it’s social media. This is different because kids are being exposed to addictive platforms that operate 24/7. They don’t go home after school and take a break. You mentioned smoking—in my day, we had cigarette cartoons that targeted young people. That sort of advertising isn’t allowed anymore. Many of the rules around cigarettes are different now, but those companies did not make changes willingly. They were forced to do better because of legislation and lawsuits that were brought against them.

We know that fewer teens and young adults smoke today. Can you imagine a day twenty years from now when social media is less of a threat? I can. Even ten years ago, nobody really understood what we were signing on to with social media, definitely not in terms of kids and teens. If I had a younger child today, I would probably make different decisions. I remember buying an iPad for my daughter when she was really little. We were going on a flight. It was a short-term solution, but now I think about the long term and I’m not sure I would do that again. My daughter is 15. She’s a great kid, but she just came home for lunch, and sure enough, she’s on her phone.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.