'Infuriating' how easy it was for my 14-year-old to outsmart social media controls: Digital safety expert

Parents and school districts get candid on why they are suing social media companies, alleging algorithms have negatively impacted children's mental health.

Colorado school districts most recently joined a national lawsuit with over 200 plaintiffs against the parent companies of Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. The suits have been consolidated in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif. The schools claim, in part, that students' time on social media has negatively impacted their behavior and has severely limited their attention span in class. Cortney O'Brien is an Editor at Fox News. Twitter: @obrienc2

Denver Public Schools school board president Xóchitl Gaytán told Fox News Digital that they voted unanimously to join the lawsuit partly due to how social media was seemingly hurting both students and teachers. 

"The research has shown that this constant and frequent use of social media leads to mental health issues within our young students, and those mental health issues can be like severe anxiety, depression, suicide," Gaytán told Fox News Digital. "So there's the mental health harm… And then another aspect that I was looking at is the very constant and almost abusive use of cell phones… There's the use of that in classrooms and how it cuts into classroom instruction time. It's really affecting teachers."