The Click Times: Christopher James Dawley, called CJ to his friends and family, was 14 years old when he joined Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. He, like many other youngsters, used these platforms to document his life.
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, CJ worked as a busboy at Texas Roadhouse. He enjoyed golf and “Doctor Who,” and he was highly sought after by top-tier institutions. “His advisor said he could receive a free ride anywhere he wanted to go,” his mother, Donna Dawley, told CNN Business recently at the family’s home.
Throughout high school, though, he acquired what his parents saw to be a social media addiction. “He couldn’t stop staring at his phone by senior year,” she claimed. According to his mother, he frequently stayed up until 3 a.m. on Instagram conversing with others, occasionally sharing naked images. He became sleep deprived and concerned with his physical appearance.
CJ went into his room on January 4, 2015, while his family was putting down their Christmas tree and decorations. He texted his best friend, “God’s speed,” and posted an update on his Facebook page: “Who switched off the light?” CJ fatally shot himself while holding a 22-caliber rifle in one hand and his smartphone in the other. He was 17 years old. A suicide note was discovered on the envelope of a college acceptance letter, according to police.
His parents stated that he never displayed obvious signs of despair or suicide ideation.
“When we found him, his phone was still on, in his hand, with blood on it,” Donna Dawley explained. “He was so addicted to it that even in his final moments, he was posting on social media.”
The Dawleys are now joining a rising number of families who have recently launched wrongful death lawsuits against several of the major social media corporations, alleging that their platforms played a key role in their teenagers’ decisions to terminate their lives. The Dawleys’ complaint, which was filed last week, targets Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, and Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent corporation. According to the lawsuit, the two firms designed their platforms to addict users with algorithms that lead to “never-ending” scrolling in order to increase time spent on the site for advertising and profit.
The sites also efficiently exploit child users’ decision-making and impulse control abilities, according to the lawsuit, due to “incomplete brain development.”
Donna Dawley and her husband, Chris, believe CJ’s mental health suffered as a direct result of the platforms’ addictive nature. They claimed they were moved to sue Meta and Snap after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen disclosed hundreds of internal emails, including some indicating the firm was aware of the ways Instagram may harm mental health and body image.
In public statements, including testimony before Congress last year, Haugen expressed concern about how Facebook’s algorithms could steer younger users toward harmful information, such as posts about eating disorders or self-harm, and lead to social media addiction. (At the time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a 1,300-word Facebook post that Haugen took the business’s study on its influence on children out of context and portrayed a “false picture of the company.”)
IF YOU BELIEVE SOMEONE IS SUICIDAL:
- Do not abandon the individual.
- Remove any firearms, alcoholic beverages, illegal substances, or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt.
- Dial the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the United States at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
- Take the person to an emergency room or seek medical or mental health assistance.
Source: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. For more tips and warning signs, click here.
“We were trying to figure out what happened for seven years,” Donna Dawley said, adding that she felt motivated to “hold the corporations accountable” after seeing how Instagram is structured to keep users on the network for as long as possible. “How could you put a product out there knowing it would be addictive? Who would ever do something like that?”
Haugen’s disclosures and Congressional testimony heightened congressional scrutiny of digital platforms on all sides of the aisle. In February, the Senate unveiled a bipartisan measure that proposes new and clear obligations for tech platforms to safeguard children from digital abuse. President Joe Biden also used a portion of his State of the Union speech to call on Congress to “hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.”
Some families are now taking matters into their own hands and petitioning the courts to force internet giants to modify the way their platforms operate. Following the revelation of the Facebook papers, the Dawleys’ lawyer, Matthew Bergman, founded the Social Media Victims Law Center last October. He now represents 20 families who have sued social media firms for wrongful death.
“Money is not what drives Donna and Chris Dawley to launch this case and relive their awful loss,” Bergman explained. “The only way to compel [social media firms] to change their harmful but extremely profitable algorithms is to alter their economic calculation by forcing them to pay the genuine costs that their dangerous goods have inflicted on families like the Dawleys.”
He continued, saying: “When confronted with similar instances of blatant product manufacturer misbehaviour, juries have given tens of millions of dollars in compensatory damages and billions of dollars in punitive damages. I have every reason to believe that a jury, after fairly weighing all of the evidence, will reach a similar conclusion in this instance.”
Snap representative Katie Derkits told CNN Business that while the company cannot comment on ongoing litigation, “our hearts go out to any family who has lost a loved one to suicide.”
“We purposefully developed Snapchat differently from other social media platforms to be a place for individuals to connect with their actual friends and offer in-app mental health tools, including suicide prevention for Snapchatters in need,” Derkits explained. “Nothing is more essential than the safety and well-being of our community, and we are always looking for new methods to help Snapchatters.”
Meta also declined to comment on the issue because it is now in litigation, but said the firm currently provides a number of suicide prevention measures, such as instantly offering resources to a user if a friend or AI determines a post is about suicide.
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Tags: #social media and suicidal behaviour #social media teenage depression #social media adolescent depression #social media addiction #teenage suicide due to social media
