An internal research study at Meta dubbed “Project MYST” created in partnership with the University of Chicago, found that parental supervision and controls — akin to deadlines and restricted access — had little impact on kids’ compulsive use of social media. The study also found that children who experienced stressful life events were more more likely to lack the power to moderate their social media use appropriately.
This was one in all the notable claims revealed during testimony on the social media addiction trial that began last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The plaintiff within the lawsuit is identified by her initials “KGM” or her first name, “Kaley.” She, along together with her mother and others joining the case, is accusing social media firms of making “addictive and dangerous” products that led the young users to suffer anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and more.
The case is now one in all several landmark trials that may happen this 12 months, which accuse social media firms of harming children. The outcomes of those lawsuits will impact these firms’ approach to their younger users and will prompt regulators to take further motion.
On this case, the plaintiff sued Meta, YouTube, ByteDance (TikTok), and Snap, however the latter two firms had settled their claims before the trial’s start.
Within the jury trial now underway in L.A., Kaley’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, brought up an internal study at Meta, which he said found evidence that Meta knew of, yet didn’t publicize, these specific harms.
In Project MYST, which stands for the Meta and Youth Social Emotional Trends survey, Meta’s research concluded that “parental and household aspects have little association with teens’ reported levels of attentiveness to their social media use.”
Or, in other words, even when parents try to regulate their children’s social media use, either through the use of parental controls and even just household rules and supervision, it doesn’t impact whether or not the kid will overuse social media or use it compulsively. The study was based on a survey of 1,000 teens and their parents about their social media use.
The study also noted that each parents and teenagers agreed on this front, saying “there isn’t a association between either parental reports or teen reports of parental supervision, and teenagers’ survey measures of attentiveness or capability.”
If the study’s findings are accurate, that will mean that using things just like the built-in parental controls within the Instagram app or the deadlines on smartphones wouldn’t necessarily help teens grow to be less inclined to overuse social media, the plaintiff’s lawyer argued. As the unique criticism alleges, teens are being exploited by social media products, whose defects include algorithmic feeds designed to maintain users scrolling, intermittent variable rewards that manipulate dopamine delivery, incessant notifications, deficient tools for parental controls, and more.
During his testimony, Instagram head Adam Mosseri claimed to not be acquainted with Meta’s Project MYST, despite the fact that a document looked as if it would indicate he had given his approval to maneuver forward with the study.
“We do numerous research projects,” Mosseri said, after claiming he couldn’t remember anything specific about MYST beyond its name.
Nonetheless, the plaintiff’s lawyer pointed to this study for instance of why social media firms must be held accountable for his or her alleged harms, not the parents. He noted that Kaley’s mother, for instance, had tried to stop her daughter’s social media addiction and use, even taking her phone away at times.
What’s more, the study found that teens who had a greater variety of antagonistic life experiences — like those coping with alcoholic parents, harassment in school, or other issues — reported less attentiveness over their social media use. Meaning that children facing trauma of their real lives were more susceptible to addiction, the lawyer argued.
On the stand, Mosseri looked as if it would partially agree with this finding, saying, “There’s a wide range of reasons this could be the case. One I’ve heard often is that folks use Instagram as a strategy to escape from a tougher reality.” Meta is careful to not label any kind of overuse as addiction; as an alternative, Mosseri stated that the corporate uses the term “problematic use” to seek advice from someone “spending more time on Instagram than they be ok with.”
Lawyers for Meta, meanwhile, pushed the concept that the study was more narrowly focused on understanding if teens felt they were using social media an excessive amount of, not whether or not they were actually addicted. Additionally they generally aimed to place more of the responsibility on parents and the realities of life because the catalyst for youths like Kaley’s negative emotional states, not firms’ social media products.
As an example, Meta’s lawyers pointed to Kaley being a baby of divorced parents, with an abusive father, and facing bullying in school.
How the jury will interpret the findings of studies like Project MYST and others, together with the testimonies from either side, stays to be seen. Mosseri did note, nonetheless, that MYST’s findings had not been published publicly, and no warnings were ever issued to teens or parents in consequence of the research.
Meta has been asked for comment.