Fourteen-year-old Kanyin Palmer’s beloved fantasy novels might not be too far removed from reality.
The series she’s reading, “Michael Vey,” follows a group of high schoolers who wield electrical powers. Throughout the books, they battle a sinister organization seeking to use the kids’ powers to achieve world domination.
Much like “Michael Vey,” many kids across the U.S. are gifted with a power of electricity through a small phone screen that fits in their palms.
Lawyers for a California woman argue in a landmark trial that the social media apps accessible through these screens are addictive and harmful for young people. Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified about child safety on Instagram in front of the jury tasked with deciding whether her lawyers are right.
“Our teachers constantly have to say, ‘OK, guys, no phones, no phones.’ And it can just get out of hand,” Kanyin said of her eighth grade peers at Montezuma–Cortez Middle School. “Whenever some kids do have free time, the first thought they have is to pull out their phone and pull out Instagram or TikTok or whatever platform it is.”
The “addictive” component in the California trial is one of the most contested as experts weigh in on whether social media can be addictive like tobacco. Parents, school staff and law enforcement officials in Cortez, Mancos and Dolores argue that it is.
“These social media platforms are set up to stimulate a child’s brain in a way that gives them dopamine,” said Josh Gardner, the dean of students at Mancos Middle School. “When you take that away, it’s painful.”
Mancos Middle School, which adopted a phone ban two years ago, now says students are more attentive and engaged during class. But social media use outside the classroom continues to affect children’s relationships and academics.
“It’s almost like they go through the five stages of grief,” Garner said of middle schoolers who have their phones confiscated in class.
Children under 13 are not permitted to create Instagram accounts; however, lawyers for the young woman in the California trial presented a 2015 internal Instagram document estimating that 4 million of its users were under 13. A 2024 survey of 885 Coloradans ages 12 to 17 found that kids spent an average of 2.6 hours per day on social media and that prolonged use correlated with an increase in mental health days per month.
Gardner estimated that 75% of his middle school students are on social media. Jennifer Kuntz, a language arts teacher at Dolores High School, estimated that 95% of her students are on social media.
“When we try to remove cellphones or confiscate them during class, the reaction is intense,” Kuntz said. “It’s much the same as taking a cigarette from a smoker or alcohol from an alcoholic. They get volatile, they get abrasive, they get combative.”
She has caught students scrolling on social media during class, watching as their attention spans decreased with increased access to short‑form content. She said many students stopped reading.
“I think it’s a whole marketing ploy to get people addicted. It’s – quite frankly, I believe – disgusting,” Kuntz said.
Kuntz’s dissertation for her master’s degree focuses on adolescent illiteracy and its relation to smartphone use. Given her research, she believes the instant gratification available on phones is the catalyst for students’ apathy toward reading. Gardner sees those effects bleeding into unstructured play, which the American Psychological Association says supports physical, mental and social development.
“The screen time is substituting our kids’ free playtime,” Gardner said.
With social media, Gardner added, kids are meaner. Officer Karla Ross, who served as the Cortez Police Department’s school resource officer for five years until 2025, agrees.
“We have children that are committing suicide from being cyberbullied. I've seen students withdraw from school, and even change schools just because of the issues they were having involving the internet,” Ross said. “I saw anything and everything from sexting to fake profiles to just flat‑out meanness.”
These issues, she said, were not limited to a certain age group. They manifested in elementary schools too.
“It breaks my heart. Honestly, I'm sad a lot of the time, the way kids treat each other through social media,” Ross said.
While Kanyin’s parents don’t allow her to have social media, it’s a part of her middle school world. She said the cyberbullying and drama on those platforms impacts school time. The collision of the online and in‑person worlds creates a strange dynamic, she noted, separating those with social media from those without.
“It's sort of weird because something might have happened on social media platforms that others don't really know about, but then others sort of secretly know,” Kanyin said. “It's like this invisible boundary or invisible block.”
Kanyin’s mom, Torrey Palmer, intends to keep that boundary in place. She has complete control over her daughter’s phone, which doesn’t have internet access. Her daughter must request approval to download apps or save a new contact.
Palmer said teenagers are vulnerable to social media.
“I feel like it hurts their ability to communicate in person,” Palmer said. “Parents can do a better job by limiting social media all together until late high school.”
She recommended the Gabb or Troomi phones, smartphones with restricted internet and built‑in parental controls. Palmer says she’s been lucky because some of her daughter’s friends don’t have phones and very few use social media.
But for Palmer, who uses Facebook and Instagram to post her photography and stay in touch with loved ones, restricting her own social media use is difficult. The 10 minutes she intends to spend sorting through posts quickly turns into an hour.
“If it’s that hard for me to control it, it’s just going to be 10 times harder for our kids,” Palmer said.
Ross, who waited to give her son a phone until he was 16, thinks every parent should read “Parenting in the Digital World: A Step‑by‑Step Guide to Internet Safety” by Clayton Cranford. It shows parents how to block certain apps and navigate conversations about online safety.
Meanwhile, Dolores High School, after witnessing the effects of a school‑day phone ban on its middle schoolers, will implement similar rules for its students after spring break.
“That’s been really beneficial for those groups of kids. We have seen an increase in meaningful interactions, and they’re more engaged in classroom activities, and they’re less distracted by having that constant access,” Kuntz said.
While the California jury continues to hear testimony, more than 1,500 other people suing social media companies are watching closely. If Meta and YouTube are found liable, the outcome could have a domino effect on thousands of other suits claiming social media companies caused similar harms and promoted addictive behaviors.
However, the outcome likely won’t affect Kanyin. In her beloved “Michael Vey” books, the teens have the power.
avanderveen@the-journal.com
