Testimony from New Mexico educators about the disruptive effects of social media in schools is offering an early look at the evidence a Kentucky school district hopes to present in a closely watched federal trial against Meta Platforms, TikTok, Snap and YouTube, and that the companies are fighting to keep from jurors.
Testimony from New Mexico school administrators on the effects of social media in schools has offered a window into an upcoming summer showdown in federal court between a Kentucky school district and Meta Platforms, TikTok, Snap and YouTube.The Kentucky suit, brought by the Breathitt County Board of Education, alleges that the companies’ platforms were deliberately engineered to maximize student engagement in ways that disrupt classrooms, fuel bullying and mental health problems, and force schools to divert staff and resources to manage the fallout.
Breathitt is expected to rely on accounts from school officials over how social media has seeped into nearly every aspect of school life, much like the educators called to the stand at a trial currently unfolding in New Mexico against Meta (see here).
But it’s also the kind of evidence that the social media companies would like to keep out.
—New Mexico—
School officials who have taken the stand in New Mexico describe a “battle for attention” in the classroom as they try to educate students students amid the constant lure of social media (see here).
Eric Crites, head of school at the New Mexico School for the Arts, said he’s seen kids leave the classroom to check their notifications in the bathroom and walk the halls head-down while scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, “not even looking where they are going sometimes.”
Crites pointed out the spiking anxiety among kids whose lives are on constant display for their peers. Because of the design of ubiquitous apps like Instagram, students’ reactions to events unfolding on those platforms are often heightened. “They are constantly exposed,” he said. “It's normalized because adolescence is occurring on Instagram and I think they don't even know how to wrap their heads around what that does to them, that they're so exposed to that negativity and constant feedback.”
Katherine Salazar, an assistant principal at Wilson Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, testified in February that one student whose phone had been confiscated ran out of the classroom, returned with a rock, smashed the locked classroom window and “completely ransacked” the room and the teacher’s desk where the phone had been locked away (see here).
She said conflicts also escalate quickly as tensions amplified on social media spill into the real world. “Before social media existed [...] it was just a fight. Now it's a fight that leads to another, something that leads to another, something that leads to another,” Salazar testified. “And so I do believe that social media exacerbates what we already knew was there, and it heightens it.”
While kids under 13 are not allowed on Instagram, “I know many, many, many sixth-graders right now who are on Instagram,” Salazar said.
Cheryl Cole, former principal of the Vado Elementary School, near Las Cruces, testified that Instagram was a disruptive force within her school, particularly right after Christmas when many children had received new phones.
That was notable, Coyle said, because no student in the school was over the age of 12, and they therefore should not have been on Instagram. Students using Instagram were as young as nine-year-old fourth graders, she said.
Coyle said students, over and over, would post hurtful or bullying content about other students at the elementary school, which would be seen and shared by a large number of students. That often meant the principal had to step in, Coyle said, because the parents of the child being posted about were so upset.
“I spend a lot of time investigating . . . because you have a crying student and a crying mom and an angry dad, and it happens repeatedly over time,” Coyle told the jury, adding that she spent a lot of time reporting posts to Instagram and trying to get them removed, with no success.
Coyle said she reported to Instagram many times that the Vado students posting to the platform were under 13, but the content was never taken down. Finally, out of frustration, she wrote to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri in February 2024. She said she felt like she was spending all of her time “fighting with Instagram.”
Asked to respond to Coyle's letter on the witness stand Tuesday by a Meta lawyer on direct examination, Mosseri acknowledged that Coyle raised “some very concerning patterns” with both bullying and with under-13 users.
He said Instagram is trying to get better at detecting the behavior Coyle described.
"One of things we’ve learned over the years is that a lot of bullying is subtle in a variety of ways," and therefore difficult to detect, he said. If Instagram took down all content that might be bullying, "we’d have to take down everything, so the idea is we want to try to get better and better at identifying what might be problematic and taking that down."
—Breathitt County’s case —
The testimony offered by these New Mexico educators echoes accounts that school officials in Kentucky have already given in depositions and sworn affidavits ahead of a bellwether trial against social media giants scheduled to begin in mid-June in federal court.
School counselor Kera Howard testified that students often report feeling depressed after conflicts on social media or posts about them spread widely online.
“Students tell me that due to interactions they have on social media platforms, or things said about them there and the number of people those posts reach, that they suffer from depression,” she said, adding that a lot of them are on medication.
Howard said that early in her career, it was rare for students to seek help for social media-related problems. But they became increasingly reliant on their phones and social media for their primary form of communication during the COVID-19 pandemic when schools were shut down.
“Since then, many students have developed the belief that they can say or send virtually anything through these platforms without consequence. This is largely due to features that allow messages and images to disappear after being sent and that notify users when content has been screenshotted,” Howard said in her affidavit. “As a result, online interactions have become more impulsive, unfiltered, and at times harmful. Students are often subjected to cyberbullying, exclusion, and constant social comparison, all of which significantly impact their mental health.”
She noted that the 24/7 nature of the platforms “means students rarely get a break from the pressures of maintaining an online presence, leading to chronic stress and emotional exhaustion.”
The majority of her day, roughly 75 percent, is now spent dealing with students in crisis over social media conflicts, leaving her with less time to dedicate to other aspects of her job.
Breathitt County Superintendent Phillip Watts said the schools bought pouches to store students’ phones during class, purchases they would not have made but for the constant interruptions caused by social media.
He said he believes the students are addicted to the platforms because so many of the challenges Breathitt County schools face center around social media, with students regularly coming to counselors and principals, phones in hand, asking for help dealing with conflicts that started on the platforms.
The issues aren’t confined to fighting, gossip and bullying. They also extend to damaging school property.
Breathitt High School Principal Daphne Noble said students are ripping out soap dispensers in school bathrooms for TikTok clout. “I think they just wanted to be a part of the whole TikTok. .. The kids are addicted to the social media, and they want to be a part of what was going on there. They wanted to get their likes up,” she said in her deposition.
— Social media companies push back —
While the state of New Mexico’s case draws heavily from educators’ first- and second-hand reports of the mental and emotional effects of problematic social media use, the platforms are fighting to keep similar accounts from ever reaching the jury.
Next week, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear a swath of motions that seek to bar such testimony as hearsay (see here). In one of their motions in limine, Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok said testimony from Breathitt County administrators about students’ alleged social media addiction amounts to “nothing more than rank speculation and inadmissible opinion.”
They also note that fact witnesses from the school district are not medical professionals, and are in no position to assess "addiction."
Whether jurors may consider educators’ everyday experiences as evidence of causation will depend on the evidentiary boundaries Gonzalez Rogers sets.
—MLex viewed the New Mexico trial on Courtroom View Network.
—Madeline Hughes contributed reporting.
Please email editors@mlex.com to contact the editorial staff regarding this story, or to submit the names of lawyers and advisers.