Denver’s educations officials are weighing joining a national class action lawsuit against social media companies, claiming their platforms have hurt students’ mental health and caused adverse effects on schools.

The Denver Public Schools board is set to consider a contract for legal services with attorneys involved in the lawsuit – among them Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles P.C. – at its Thursday meeting.

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Joseph VanZandt – a Montgomery, Alabama attorney with Beasley Allen – did not return a phone call and email seeking comment Wednesday.

“I believe what our board is looking at is joining the lawsuit,” said Bill Good, a district spokesperson.

Thursday’s meeting will include a presentation on the national litigation.

Board President Xóchitl Gaytán, who has a son in high school in southwest Denver, said that she is very interested to learn more about the strategies and algorithms deployed by social media platforms to prioritize content seen in user feeds.

“Our students today are seeing these images constantly,” Gaytán said.

Gaytán added, “It’s concerning to know that our students are seeing images and reading messages that are not always positive. It’s frightening.”

If approved by the district, the contract would entitle attorneys to 33.3% of any financial settlement. The district would not have to pay legal fees if no damages are awarded.

A spate of gun violence and the shooting of two administrators earlier this year at East High School – the district’s flagship campus – have raised the attention paid to mental health.

When they decided to return police officers to campus – first temporarily and then permanently – the board members also said they want to ensure students have access to additional mental health resources. 

The district committed, in Superintendent Alex Marrero’s safety report, to provide at least one mental health professional for each of the district’s 209 schools.

The district has more than 400 mental health providers who serve nearly 90,000 students.

In June, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health, noting a growing body of research exploring its potential harms.

Social media use is widespread among today’s youth.

Up to 95% of 13- to 17-year-olds report using a social media platform, according to the surgeon general.

In the advisory, Murthy notes the critical importance of adolescent brain development at a time when risk-taking behaviors among youth peaks. This is also when mental health challenges, such as depression, emerge.

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“Furthermore, in early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are forming, brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions, and peer comparison,” the 25-page advisory says.

The Office of the Surgeon General’s advisory comes at a time when suicide has become the leading cause of death for the state’s youth and young adults, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death in the U.S among those ages 10 to 14 and 25 to 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Children’s Hospital Colorado in 2021 declared a “state of emergency” after seeing a nearly 60% increase over two years in pediatric patient visits to the emergency department with mental health concerns. Officials have reported a steady increase in emergency department visits since the declaration.

Feeling connected to family and friends and access to health care can reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviors, experts noted. 

Filed in March in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the 287-page class action lawsuit claims that the explosion in social media use in the past decade was orchestrated by Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube, and it accuses the tech giants of “maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue” by borrowing the techniques used by the cigarette industry.

“Defendants know children are in a developmental stage that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of these features,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants target them anyway, in pursuit of additional profit.”

According to news reports, the lawsuit has more than 200 plaintiffs.

As school districts across the nation join the lawsuit, the litigation has the potential to be commensurate with legal actions taken against tobacco, vaping and opioid companies.

The social media lawsuit comes amidst a growing movement to regulate – and “childproof” – the internet.

Unlike cigarettes or opioids that can be physically addictive, the connection for social media could appear more tenuous, some experts said. 

Adam Alter, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, however, has likened the “Like” feature as giving social media users a hit of dopamine – a chemical associated with pleasure – similar to drugs or alcohol.

Alter’s academic research focuses on judgment and decision-making.

In addition to the presentation on the class action lawsuit, board members will also hold an executive session to discuss Marrero’s evaluation and receive an update on $4.3 million in grants to the district from the Denver Public Schools Foundation.

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