What social media does to young people, and what parents can do
Most parents arrive here because something feels off rather than because they have a theory. This site sets out what to look for, how to tell it apart from ordinary adolescence, what to do first, and how the lawsuits work. Support routes come before legal ones on every page, and nothing here is paid for by anyone.
What are parents seeing?
Six patterns come up most often. Each page below starts with the signs, then explains what the evidence does and does not establish.
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Signs your teenager is struggling
What is worth paying attention to, and what a change usually means.
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When to worry, and when it is normal
Most of what worries parents is developmentally ordinary. Here is where the line actually sits.
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What to do first
If you have decided something is wrong, the order that tends to work.
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Sleep
Usually the first thing to go, and the one that makes everything else harder.
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Anxiety and low mood
What the evidence supports, and where researchers genuinely disagree.
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Compulsive use
Why it is not a diagnosis, and what a clinician assesses instead.
How the design produces the harm
This is the part that is usually skipped, and it is the part that matters legally. The claim is not that phones are bad. It is that specific product decisions were made, and that their effects were measured internally.
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A feature ships
A feed with no end, autoplay, streaks, notification timing that varies.
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Use extends
Sessions run longer than the young person intended or can account for.
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Sleep goes first
Bedtime slips, then sleep quality, then the capacity to regulate the next day.
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The feed narrows
Ranking systems read engagement as interest, including engagement with things that are making it worse.
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Symptoms present
By the time a parent sees it, the pattern is usually months old.
Questions parents ask first
Is social media addiction a real diagnosis?
No. The American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual does not contain one, and no clinician can give your child that label. What they assess instead is sleep, mood, anxiety, school, eating and friendships, and what has changed in each, because those are the things that can be treated.
How do I tell this apart from ordinary teenage behavior?
Duration, direction and function. How long it has lasted, whether it is getting worse, and whether it is stopping them doing things they need to do.
Should I take the phone away?
Not as an opening move, and never on the day you find something. If sleep is the problem, charging the phone outside the bedroom is the single highest-value change available at home.
Does contacting you commit me to anything?
No. Contacting us does not create an attorney client relationship and what you send is not confidential or privileged until a lawyer has agreed in writing to represent you.
Three different kinds of help
These are separate on purpose. A parent looking for clinical help should never arrive in a legal intake queue by accident.
Getting help
A family doctor first, the school counselor second, a therapist third. The first two are faster and cheaper, and both can refer you onward.
Finding helpWe do not provide treatment and take no payment from anyone who does.
The lawsuits
How the claims work, what has to be shown, and why the deadlines are different for a child. This comes second to getting your child care, and that is not a formality.
How the lawsuits workContacting us does not create an attorney client relationship, and what you send is not confidential or privileged.
Reporting and resources
Reporting an image or an adult, what a school can actually do, and the organizations worth your time.
ResourcesNobody pays to be listed and listing is not endorsement.