DeKalb County School District is moving ahead with its lawsuit against major social-media companies, alleging that platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube were intentionally designed in ways that drive excessive engagement among young users and contribute to mental-health and behavioral problems inside schools. The district is one of six school systems chosen as bellwether plaintiffs in the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of California, and it is seeking nearly $180 million in past damages and as much as $4.3 billion to support a long-term plan to address student mental health.
According to the lawsuit, features such as algorithmic content feeds, infinite scroll, rapid reward cycles, and constant notifications encourage compulsive use among minors. The district alleges that these design choices have added to anxiety, depression, distraction, and rising behavioral issues among students, and have required schools to divert significant resources to counseling, support programs, and classroom management. DeKalb reports more than $4.3 million already spent on these efforts and says teachers lose 10–20 percent of classroom time to conflicts, distraction, and compulsive phone use tied to social-media engagement.
One element of the suit is the failure-to-warn claim: the district alleges that social-media companies should have warned about the risks associated with the design of their platforms and their impact on minors. The complaint frames these design features as product decisions that carried foreseeable risks. Public reporting in recent years has shown that Meta had internal research on teen mental-health concerns that did not become public until leaks brought it to light, and the lawsuit uses that broader context to argue that warnings were necessary.
The social-media companies have responded with a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to dismiss the case before trial. The defendants contend that DeKalb cannot prove causation, that the damages sought are not legally recoverable, and that no duty existed to warn school districts about risks associated with platform use. If the court grants the motion, the case ends. If the motion is denied, DeKalb proceeds toward a bellwether trial.
These cases are developing against a backdrop where the public already recognizes that social media affects youth mental health, attention span, and the ability to focus and think critically. What is now beginning to emerge—through leaks, litigation, and public reporting—is a clearer picture of how the platforms were built and how little visibility schools and families had into the design decisions behind them. As more information comes out, it is likely that additional school systems and public entities will pursue similar claims. The judge’s ruling on the pending summary-judgment motion will determine whether DeKalb’s allegations are tested through discovery and trial or are stopped before those underlying facts are examined.