Is Social Media Linked To Youth Aggression?
Video Transcript
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Hi, this is Ray Hrdlicka, host of Attorneys.Media, “In The News” section, and today we have Steve Gacovino, a personal injury attorney in Long Island, New York, who actually practices all over the country in one of his specialties, which is social media youth harm litigation.
I’m asking this question of Steve because, in the news recently during the past weeks and months, there has been a great number of violent situations that, upon investigation, have revealed that some of the underlying actions of the assailant involved spending a great deal of time on social media and/or gaming.
So, the question I want to pose to you, Stephen, is: Is the media simply recognizing these issues more and more as pre-existing conditions, or are these incidents actually occurring more and more?
The reason I’m asking this question is you’ve got your finger on the pulse in terms of litigation all over the country on these issues.
So, are these issues increasing? In other words, are more people becoming susceptible to them?
Let me pose that question to you.
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY
Well, all right. Thank you for the question. Thanks for having me on. I always appreciate it.
With respect to the numerous acts of violence that we’re seeing in media, whether or not those are tied specifically to social media and gaming, I don’t know, and I can’t make any specific statement regarding causation.
That’s not my place, and I think those things need to be analyzed on an individual basis.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
They are, and that’s the reason I bring those up, so yes, thank you.
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY
But one thing I can say more broadly is that we know there is a lot of content out there that young minds are being fed. And a lot of that content is often negative, harmful, and dark.
We do have to ask ourselves—whether you’re a teacher, a parent, a government, or one of these companies—are these platforms feeding the brain in a way that’s changing how people behave?
I don’t know about these particular instances we’re talking about, but it seems to me, by and large, based on the people I speak to, where we’ve looked into their background and they’re spending tons of time getting information—whether it’s on body image, violent imagery, political content, or otherwise—they’re often stuck in these bubbles.
The more information they seek, the more information they receive.
These algorithms keep people here. My firmly held belief is that it is changing the way people behave, it’s changing the way they think, and it’s mostly in a negative way.
So it’s a concern.
Now, these things are becoming more powerful. We know the intelligence is getting better, more effective all the time because these companies want engagement.
They want to keep people on their platforms, playing, scrolling, investigating—whatever it is they think they’re doing on these platforms. They want to keep people there as long as they possibly can, viewing as long as they can, because they know that’s a more valuable consumer to their advertisers at the end of the day.
We want to help people who are stuck in that loop, people who feel as if they’ve been harmed. If you’re a parent and you’ve observed it with your child, we often talk to people who are suffering from anorexia, bulimia, suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety. These are the people we want to speak to because we think we can help through litigation.
We are bringing these cases. We do want to see some change happen as a result of it, for sure.
I don’t know if things are going to change legislatively or from a regulatory standpoint, or if companies will change their behavior themselves.
But through litigation, maybe you get some level of accountability and accountability, we believe, needs to change.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Well, that’s the first step. As a profession, attorneys can create that change through litigation. Then something’s got to change either with the end user—meaning social media companies or gaming companies—or it’s going to be picked up by politicians for legislation. There’s going to be some change.
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY
Well, yeah. And to that point, I think that we are starting to see some change.
I believe it’s 47 states that have now banned cell phone use in school, which I think is terrific.
I didn’t realize it was new and a game changer. I know they’re doing it in New York. I did see on the news that 47 out of 50 states have some laws addressing this.
I hope I’m reporting it correctly. I know in New York, kids can’t bring phones to school anymore. I think it’s a great step. Wonderful, right?
Well, at the very least, it gets them talking to each other again. It gets them engaged in something else and not living in their own isolated bubble.
They’re going to have shared experiences because we are social animals. Most of our social time has been taken up on this phone, and young people are getting lost in it, and they’re going to lose the art of connecting to other people.
Doing this in school is a huge deal. First of all, they’re going to learn better, and I think they’ll become better people in terms of satisfaction, happiness, connection, and shared experiences.
These are the things that really make us feel human. And I think a good deal of that is being taken away by engaging too much in what’s happening on your phone.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
I totally agree with you.
Obviously, you and I are of a different age group than teenagers or young adults in their twenties.
Somewhere in the past, I came across a phrase and realized they’re even creating terms for what you’re talking about.
That is the phrase “doom scrolling.”
The first time I heard that, I said, “What the hell is this?”
That is just a continual cycle, and it has to be affecting your head, your mind.
It can suck up your entire existence when they’re doing this.
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY
I’ve witnessed it.
I’ve witnessed it with young people. I’ve witnessed it, even surprisingly, with people in our age group.
Look, I’m not so tech savvy. I’ve never fallen in love with the phone as anything more than a tool for texting, emailing, and certainly useful for research or finding out the score of a baseball game.
For those things, I love it.
But I’ve not engaged in social media. I don’t game, so I’m speaking for myself and probably to someone like you who can relate to it.
We just didn’t grow up in it. It’s a different thing.
But this is where they’ve always existed. When I say “they,” I mean people under 30 years old. They had MySpace in the mid-2000s, then Instagram and Facebook in the later 2000s, and TikTok after that.
Gaming has been around for quite some time, but it’s gotten more robust and frequent, easier to use, whether handheld or through a gaming system.
Both of these things take up an awful lot of time for an awful lot of people.
I’m hoping what I’m sharing with you today about the cell phone use in schools is something we’re finally shutting down on.
I hope it’s a step in the right direction and I truly believe it is.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Well, you know, there’s an old adage: money is going to go wherever it’s going to create more money.
When the social media companies saw—let me back up a second—you mentioned one or two social media companies, but now there’s a proliferation of them.
You can’t name them all off the top of your head.
Same thing with gaming.
It started out in the 1990s, maybe late 1980s.
There are tens of millions of games out there. Not as many companies as that, but a lot more than there were 10 or 20 years ago.
That’s where the money comes in.
Obviously, that’s what society is facing and arguing against.
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY
Yep, well, and I think with these games and social media platforms, engagement is money, right?
Engagement is money.
They’ll do what they need to do to create as much engagement as possible.
Now, I don’t know if these are acts of omission or commission. If the content someone is seeing is puppy dogs and butterflies, that’s one thing. But if it’s violent content, harmful content, content that encourages people to learn how to make themselves thin by starvation or hiding bulimic behavior from parents, or self-harm —those are things that should be concerning. The algorithm, just as it can powerfully turn something on, can probably shut itself off.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
Right. Well, this is a situation we’re going to keep seeing news articles and potential changes about, obviously in the future, on a regular basis.
So, we’ll keep up with you and have more conversations about this.
Thank you for appearing with us.
Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY
Okay, well, I’d love to talk to you anytime about it. Thank you, Ray.
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
You’re welcome.
Additional Resources:
- Youth Social Media Protection Act Signed Into Law – Social Media Safety
- Social Media’s Impact on Juvenile Behavior and Legal Consequences – Petrash Law
- Cyberbullying and Juvenile Law: Legal Consequences in California – Katie Walsh Law
- Social media’s role in the rise of youth violence – PBS News
- Social Media and Children 2024 Legislation – NCSL
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