Kudos to the Liberty Board of Education for acting to rein in the many clear and present dangers of social media platforms on young people.

The school board at its meeting last month began the process to join a federal class action lawsuit against Facebook parent company Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and other hyperpopular social media platforms that evidence points to contributing to the mental health crisis among an increasingly large sector of American children and adolescents.

Already hundreds of school districts in Ohio and elsewhere have joined as plaintiffs in the suit. More should follow their lead.

Specifically, the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California accuses the social media behemoths of a variety of complaints, including creation of a public nuisance, negligence, gross negligence and conspiracy to conduct its affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity. School districts will not be charged attorney fees or pay any money that isn’t earned in the lawsuit, and a jury trial is demanded in the case.

It’s not difficult to understand why this legal action has gained such incredibly fast traction. Social media’s impact on young people can be devastating to their social skills, academic achievement and overall mental and physical health.

Consider:

l Heightened mental health turmoil among young people is real. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association have declared a “national emergency,” and the U.S. surgeon general has issued an advisory “to highlight the urgent need to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis.”

l The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented a direct and proportional relationship between the meteoric rise in social media use by minors over the past decade and the skyrocketing growth in mental disorders among them.

Dr. Victor Fornari, vice chair of child and adolescent health for Nowell Health, New York’s largest health system, argued there is “no question of an association between the use of social media and the dramatic increase in suicidal behavior and depressive moods in young people.”

l Studies from peer-reviewed professional journals also tie excessive social media use to cyberbullying, eating disorders and sleep deprivation among teens.

l President Joe Biden recently said it’s time “to hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.”

The lawsuit answers our president’s call.

That lawsuit aims to force the social media companies to cease engaging in actions that cause an addictive public nuisance. It also would give unspecified dollar amount awards to school districts to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media apps. In addition, it would award actual and compensatory damages in amounts to be determined.

Though school districts arguably deserve to be compensated for increased costs wrought by social media, including for mental health care and instruction on using such apps responsibly, we hope districts do not jump on board the suit solely as a money grab.

That does not appear to be the case in Liberty, where board members showed a sincere commitment to lessening the dangers of social media overuse and abuse.

“Social media has affected every school in America in a negative way,” David Malone, president of the Liberty school board, said. The board in its agenda item on the lawsuit called social media’s adverse impact “an epidemic.”

Of course, in the final analysis, schools cannot be the sole guardian of students’ safety and mental well-being. At the end of the day, it’s ultimately parents who must be involved in monitoring their children’s online activity.

They should be the court of first resort to ward off the many possible ill effects of Meta, TikTok, Snapchat et al.

To that end, pediatricians urge parents to test apps and games before their children use them, check apps and websites their teens visit, limit time allowed on social media, model healthy social media use in their own lives and, if needed, use parental control and monitoring software.

But because parents cannot be present to monitor children’s social media use all the time and because school settings are prime breeding grounds for potential social media misuse and overuse, the involvement of school districts in dealing with the mental health crisis makes eminently good sense.

As such, other school districts in the Mahoning Valley should act promptly to join the federal lawsuit.

editorial@vindy.com