Returning to school may mean returning to the hot seat for big tech companies.

Last academic year, social media platforms TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat were embroiled in a lawsuit accusing them of disrupting learning and contributing to a mental health crisis among youth, leaving teachers to manage the fallout.

Experts said that when students return to classrooms in September, the clash between technology and textbooks will ignite again – and perhaps even escalate – as schools and parents contend with the impacts that social media has on education.

Richard Lachman, a professor of digital media at Toronto Metropolitan University, said, "Returning to school is happening at a different time this year than it was two years ago, three years ago, and four years ago."

"It feels like we, as a society, are having more conversations about the harms of social media, but the companies themselves are not necessarily in a position to do more."

Brett Caraway, a professor of media economics at the University of Toronto, said the situation the education system finds itself in this year is a result of the proliferation of mobile devices that began in 2007 with the advent of the iPhone. It has been exacerbated by the capabilities of cameras, apps, and social networks.

"I fully expect this problem to continue because the prevalence of smartphones among teenagers has not diminished."

Statista data shows that nearly 40 percent of Canadian children aged two to six used a mobile phone in April 2022. This figure rose to 50 percent for children aged seven to 11, while the percentage was higher among those aged 12 to 17 – at 87 percent.

In the same year, 42 percent of individuals aged 15 to 24 reported to Statistics Canada that they spend 20 hours or more per week using the internet "for general purposes," which includes using social media, browsing the web, online shopping, and reading news.

A significant portion of those twenty hours is dedicated to the infinite scrolling of videos, posts, and flashy images that come from social media networks that have become household names in recent years.

Caraway recently heard from a family friend about a 14-year-old boy who spends an average of six hours daily on TikTok. He found it "astonishing."

He added, "I don't understand how anyone could spend six hours a day on a smartphone like that, but that’s what the platforms are designed to do."

"They make money by proving to potential advertisers that they have high levels of user engagement ... the platform is literally designed to capture the user’s attention and hold it for as long as possible."

This can create problems for teachers who are just trying to get through the lesson or for students who need to study but are constantly drawn to the allure of social media.

Studies have linked spending more time on social media with lower self-esteem and academic performance, in addition to exposure to more harmful, violent, and mature content.

A study conducted by the World Health Organization in 2018 found that 6.85 percent of students were classified as suffering from problematic social media use, which is considered when behavioral and psychological symptoms of social media addiction emerge. The study found that about 33.14 percent of students are at moderate risk for problematic social media use and that another 60 percent face a low risk.

Four school boards in Ontario decided to take the matter to court last March, filing a lawsuit against TikTok, Snap, Instagram, and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, for $4.5 billion. The lawsuit accused them of designing their products with reckless disregard for compulsive use and reprogramming children’s thinking, behavior, and learning.

By August, the group taking action against the tech giants had grown to 12 school boards and two private schools seeking over $8 billion, according to the organizers of the lawsuit School Boards for Change.

The claims in the lawsuits have not been proven in court.

Caraway said, "Our kids are literally falling apart, and we have to spend additional resources to keep up with our commitment, which is providing education. So this lawsuit is an attempt to make someone pay for this."

When asked about the lawsuit and suggestions that social media companies do not do enough to protect children online, Snapchat spokesperson Tonya Johnson said her company’s app is designed to be different from other platforms because it aims not to pressure users to be perfect or famous.

She said in an email, "We care deeply about the mental health of young people, and while we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy, and prepared as they navigate many challenges of adolescence."

Meta did not respond to a request for comment. TikTok declined to share a statement.

However, in a safety session hosted by TikTok in July for media, it described several measures it has taken to protect young users. These include family pairing, which allows parents to link their accounts directly to their teenage children's accounts and ensure that TikTok settings for their children are agreed upon as a family, and a one-hour screen time limit for users under 18 that can only be overridden with a passcode.

As students remain distracted despite these features, some provinces, including Ontario, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Alberta, will ban mobile phones in classrooms this year.

But many say it is not a magic solution. Even if students cannot use phones in class, they sneak to use them in "every nook and cranny" of their schedule, Caraway said.

They turn them on as soon as they wake up, check them between classes, and then return to them at home until bedtime.

Some teachers are also bothered by the idea of removing them from the classroom.

Joanna Johnson, a teacher in Ontario behind the popular @unlearn16 account, said in a TikTok safety session, "Banning phones and banning technology has never been the solution for me because you ban discussion in the classroom."

Lachman does not like the "abstinence" approach taken by provinces that enforced the ban, but he says the real issue is that social media companies have a "business model ... to make us want to stay online as long as possible."

"If you are really interested in making something less addictive ... would you give young people a different interface? Would you give them a completely different algorithm?" he wondered.

"Would you give them something designed to be less appealing, less one-click, and less infinite scrolling?"