'We kind of lost him': Why Jordan School District was named lead plaintiff in suit against Meta, TikTok

WEST JORDAN — Bryce Dunford's son Logan recently graduated from Bingham High School with honors and is preparing to study environmental science at the University of Utah. But Dunford said his son's path to success hasn't always been so clear.

After being given a cellphone for his birthday as he entered middle school, Logan Dunford experienced a dramatic shift in personality, his father said, leading to slipping grades and negative mental health impacts.

"Logan was not prepared to be sucked into the social media world that was waiting for him, nor were his mother and I aware of what was happening on the other end to suck him in," Dunford said. "We kind of lost him."

That struggle continued for years, he said, until "on his own, Logan decided that the problem was not his cellphone, it was social media. And on his own, he decided to delete all social media apps from his phone."

"And then I watched a complete change come over him, and the student we knew in those early years came back," Dunford said. "Not just his grades, but his whole personality."

Dunford, a member of the Jordan School District Board of Education, addressed reporters at a press conference at Columbia Elementary School in West Jordan on Monday, after it was announced that the district has been selected as one of 12 lead plaintiffs in a nationwide lawsuit against several top social media companies, alleging their platforms fuel a youth mental health crisis.

As an educator who witnessed firsthand the "consuming power" social media can have on students, Dunford said he hopes the lawsuit will force social media companies to reckon with the alleged adverse effects he said their platforms have on young people.

The multidistrict lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court of Northern California accuses the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat of designing features that addict children, encouraging dangerous "challenges" and leading to sexual exploitation of children on the apps.

It is one of several similar legal challenges aimed at reining in social media giants, along with complaints brought by the state of Utah. The lawsuit is filed "on behalf of children who suffered personal injuries ... due to their use of defendants' products," according to an amended version of the lawsuit filed last April.

Jordan School District was named a lead or bellwether plaintiff on Monday, meaning it could be one of the plaintiffs to argue its case in court. If chosen to do so, the outcome could impact results for other school districts across the nation.

The district said the primary claims in the complaint are for negligence and public nuisance.

"This is based on the significant costs Jordan and other school districts have incurred as a result of the various harms that come from student use of social media, including the increased need for student mental health services," board President Tracy Miller said.

She said educators have noticed increased levels of anxiety, depression, sleep problems and decreasing self-esteem for many students, and said the district has added mental health professionals to the payroll to try to address the issues. Several years ago, a school in the district had a series of students die by suicide, prompting efforts from the district to bolster mental health and protect children from harm.

Those efforts are likely the reason Jordan School District was chosen as one of the bellwethers. Plaintiffs hope to tie mental health issues to social media use by teens and use the district's expenses to seek compensatory damages they ultimately hope will lead to changes in behavior by the major platforms.

Dunford said the district's investments in mental health predate the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said shows the efforts cannot be tied to pandemic-era mental health or academic programs.

Jordan School District is one of hundreds of districts involved in the lawsuit, said Paul Van Komen, outside counsel for the school board. He said the district is already actively involved in the litigation and discovery is ongoing. A trial could come as early as the end of the year, though the timeline is highly subject to change, he said, noting that he is not directly involved in the case itself.

District officials see the case as a key way to improve learning outcomes for students. Any adverse mental health effects such as anxiety, depression or lack of self-esteem make it increasingly difficult for students to focus in class and while studying, they argue.

Concerns about social media are common among parents, too. Sharol Stapley, the president of the Parent Teacher Association, said her 12-year-old is already desperate for a phone, but she worries about the impacts of such a decision. She has heard of some parents making "a pact" not to give their kids a cellphone until a certain date, in hopes of lessening the social pressure of missing out.

Stapley's fears come from her own experience on social media. She has had to learn not to compare herself to influencers and friends online and knows what it's like to be pulled into an ever-beckoning feed of content.

"On a good day it's a cat video," she said, "but it can escalate to so much more. And that's the thing, one word or something that's said in a video that's totally innocent, and before you know it, it can escalate to somewhere where you don't even want the kids to realize that's part of the world."

She said she would like to see companies make it harder for young people to create accounts on social media, and to enable features that limit the amount of time people can spend on certain apps.

As for Logan Dunford, he still often misses being on social media and worries about what he's missing out on socially, but said he continues to benefit from being offline, both in terms of his mental health and the in-person relationships he's been able to develop.

"The small fact that people were seeing me was so addicting, and it's something that I still totally crave to this day," he said. "But I recognize that the fact that I do still feel that way, should I get back on I would be sucked right back into that toxic mentality that I had in the first place and I would be super depressed again and super anxious all the time."

"So, yes, I do miss it," he added, "but I also have no intention of getting back on — at least not until I'm feeling fully myself."

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