ST PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is on a fact-finding mission, of sorts, to collect real stories and data on adolescent social media addiction. He’s asking young people and their parents for help in that quest.
Ellison’s office has set up an online form asking people to share their experiences with social media addiction. People can also submit information over the phone at 651-296-3353.
"We’ve heard from a lot of people who were making complaints, offering their observations to us, letting us know how this was affecting their classmates, their children, even from kids who were telling us how addictive it was and how they couldn't put it down, how they'd do it in the middle of the night, how they'd neglect their homework for it," Ellison told KARE.
He compared the situation to the stories he heard from middle school students who were addicted to vaping at the time he was going after Juul's marketing practices in court. People respond better to personal stories, Ellison asserted.
"If you tell them a story, they're like, 'I get it. It's something you want to be able to let go of and quit, but somehow you can't and you feel compelled.' Kids are hooked into social media that way," Ellison explained.
"We can talk about the science involving the algorithms of some of these social media companies, and it can get all complicated, we can talk about chemicals in your brain, like dopamine and all that, but what really helps people understand what's going on is the stories."
The Attorney General's online form includes a list of various boxes persons can check to describe various harms that linked to social media addiction such as depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, body image issues, eating disorders, bullying, lower attention span, reduced ability to learn, and increased risk of addictive behaviors. There’s also a space to write open-ended comments.
It’s all in support of a multi-state lawsuit Minnesota recently joined, aimed at forcing Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to be more proactive when it comes to protecting younger consumers. That includes steps such as making the default privacy setting as restrictive as possible and barring platforms from tracking adolescents’ interactions with those sites and apps.
"What we want Meta and others to do is just to help educate the public in how to use their services effectively, but what we first have to do is help them see that they're benefiting from people's lack of information. We’re doing this because it’s clear they won’t do it on their own."
The Attorney General said he wanted to assure the public that their information will remain private.
"Anytime anyone submits information to us it is considered investigated data, which means its confidential data. If we somehow want to use it in some public way, we have to get your consent. We would never ever share your information without your consent."
Legislation aimed at accomplishing some of the same goals, the Minnesota Age Appropriate Design Code bill, passed the Minnesota House during the 2023 Session but failed to win approval in the Senate.
The Minnesota Kids Code organization is still working toward gaining more support at the State Capitol for the idea.