How Common Sense Media Hurts Kids

Court documents reveal the trusted child health organization is an industry-funded social media marketer

Image: Wikimedia

In a current class-action lawsuit, a group of more than 1,800 plaintiffs—including children and parents, school districts, and state attorneys general—is suing the parent companies of Instagram (Meta), TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. Court documents describe a disturbing pattern in which social media companies know that their products are addictive and harm kids but have proceeded with product development anyway.

It may not be surprising to parents and others who care for kids that Common Sense Media (CSM) and its affiliates are identified in the lawsuit. That’s because CSM is the highest-profile pop-culture organization providing health guidance about kids’ tech and screens. However, I believe it will be surprising that CSM and its affiliates are not identified in the lawsuit primarily as protectors of children’s health, but instead as marketers of potentially harmful social media products to kids.

Document from the Social Media Addiction Trial / Image Source: Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein

In this article, I add to evidence that CSM’s chief purpose is to market social media and other screen products to kids, not protect youth. I reveal that the organization provides the opposite health guidance about screens to groups with different racial profiles. CSM markets harmful social media and other screens to groups weighted towards Black and Latino youth. In stark contrast, CSM provides science-based guidance to strictly limit social media and other screens to more affluent groups. Such barefaced racist and dangerous health guidance is fostering separate and unequal childhoods between less advantaged kids of color and more affluent youth.

Common Sense Media’s Creation of Separate and Unequal Childhoods

Common Sense Media’s Health Messaging About Screen Time to the Relatively Affluent

Jim Steyer, CSM’s founder and CEO, has written two books on the health effects of kids’ tech: The Other Parent and Talking Back to Facebook. While I don’t have specific information on the demographic composition of the purchasers of these books, those who buy self-help parenting books are typically weighted towards the white, affluent, and highly educated. As a Pew Research Center study says about adult book readers: “Those with the greatest frequency of book reading are women, whites, and those with high levels of education.” This is consistent with Steyer himself, who is white, wealthy, and highly educated.

To his book-reading audience, Steyer sends blunt warnings backed by abundant peer-reviewed research about the risks that screen time poses to kids. In Talking Back to Facebook, in which he speaks for CSM, Steyer says clearly, “Studies have shown that kids who spend less time with media have far better grades in school.” He also warns about screen time’s impact on young people’s physical health, telling us that kids spending more than two hours a day on a screen is a key reason “why childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed in this country.”

In Talking Back to Facebook, Steyer also makes clear to the parents of both children and teens the importance of setting strict screen-time limits to promote kids’ activity. He tells readers, “Even though your kid’s a teen and getting more independent, it’s important to unplug and enforce time limits on digital media. When your child spends more than two hours a day in front of a screen, he’s spending less time than he should in the real world, being active, and developing his inner resources.” Steyer makes clear in The Other Parent that he followed this advice in raising his own kids, telling us, “My wife and I have set pretty strict media limits for our own kids.”

Common Sense Media’s Health Messaging about Screen Time to an Audience Weighted Towards Black and Latino Kids

CSM has an extraordinarily powerful influence over how kids use social media and other screens through its Digital Citizenship Curriculum. This program, developed by CSM, is provided to schools for “free” to be used in grades K–12, with the stated purpose of teaching kids about the health effects of social media and other screens. Teachers use Digital Citizenship Curriculum materials, including written information and videos, to teach their students during school hours. CSM boasts that its Curriculum reaches 1.2 million educators and 88,000 schools in the US.

The Digital Citizenship Curriculum has an especially powerful presence in the lives of Black and Latino kids in low-income families. CSM says that its curriculum is taught in “80% of Title I schools,” which is more frequent than its teachings in non-Title-1 schools. Title 1 schools receive federal funding because of their high numbers of low-income students, and they have a disproportionately high percentage of Black and Latino students. As CSM tells us of its Digital Citizenship Curriculum: “Demand for the curriculum and teacher support is high in districts with high proportions of students of color and new immigrant families.”

Tragically, to this audience weighted towards Black and Latino youth, CSM provides its own anti-science messaging diminishing concerns about screen time and even promoting kids’ screen use. It does this by using its Digital Citizenship Curriculum to repeatedly attack concerns about screen time. As one example, a Digital Citizenship lesson provided to high school students is entitled “The Health Effects of Screen Time: Can Screen Time Be Bad for Us?” As part of the lesson, schools are supposed to show their students the CSM video Screen Time: How Much Is Too Much?, which uses flashy special effects to target a youth audience.

The CSM video’s young Black male host tells kids that the concept of screen time is unimportant or even a fallacy, explaining, “Screen time as a term isn’t that useful because it doesn’t really tell you what you’re doing on the screen.” The host even tells kids that screen time may be helpful to them, saying that his own internet search found that “screen use might help improve how we feel about ourselves by keeping us connected with people.” The video host concludes with this dismissive remark: “So maybe screen time in general is less important than we think.”

Common Sense Media’s Health Messaging about Social Media to the Relatively Affluent

As it does with screen time, CSM provides the opposite health messaging about kids’ social media use to groups with different racial compositions. In 2021 testimony before the US Congress, Jim Steyer spoke for CSM as he described the serious science-based risks of social media’s negative impact on kids’ emotional well-being. He said, “The increased time kids and teens spend online, particularly on social media platforms like Instagram, [is] taking a toll on their mental health. For every increased hour spent using social media, teens showed a 2 percent increase in depressive symptoms.”

CSM’s Steyer is referencing the dangers of social media as documented in the peer-reviewed literature. Yet not all families have equal access to peer-reviewed science. White and affluent parents typically have higher levels of “health literacy” than low-income and Black and Latino parents. This gives white groups greater access to science-based information about the dangers of social media. Essentially, as Steyer spoke before Congress, he was describing science about the harms of social media that would be more likely known to white families than to Black and Latino ones.

Steyer describes similar risks of social media’s impact on kids’ health to his book-reading audience in Talking Back to Facebook, explaining, “Social networks are more than a pastime. They’re a compulsion, a consuming adrenaline rush that can crowd out other aspects of a healthy life. They don’t just waste time, they steal it in large chunks—from homework, from being outside and physically active, and from communicating and interacting with friends and family in a meaningful way.” Steyer’s message to his book-reading audience couldn’t be more clear: Protect your kids from the harmful health risks of social media.

Common Sense Media’s Health Messaging about Social Media to an Audience Weighted Toward Black and Latino Kids

While CSM warns a relatively affluent audience about the serious risks of social media, the organization sends the opposite message to an audience weighted towards Black and Latino kids through its Digital Citizenship Curriculum. The Curriculum provides the lesson “Social Media and How You Feel.” High school students watch the included video How Do Different Social Media Platforms Affect Your Mood?, which features the same charismatic young Black host as the other Curriculum video. He sarcastically mocks concerns about social media’s impact on health while normalizing kids spending their lives on the platforms, exclaiming to his kid audience, “We use the hell out of social media!”

This CSM Digital Citizenship video then tells kids that social media is helpful for them as long as they use it actively rather than passively. To make this case, the video actually presents a Facebook employee who waves to the student audience and then promotes kids’ “active” use of Facebook. She claims that when users engage in active Facebook use, which she says includes “sending comments or sharing messages,” the social media corporation finds “well-being improves over time.” In this transparent ad for Meta social media products, the CSM video host chimes in, “So, the next time you see a scary headline about the evils of social media, remember, the research says . . . active use is associated with positive mood.”

“We use the hell out of social media!” — Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Why would Zuckerberg—who is the controlling owner and founder of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram—want CSM to promote kids’ “active” use of social media? Because social media companies make much more money when kids use their products actively, for example, by sharing their information. This allows social media corporations to better collect data on, track, market to, and profit from kids. Importantly, objective peer-reviewed research does not show benefits from active social media use. In fact, the opposite appears true. A 2023 journal article looking at the impact of social media on young adults declared, “Symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress were more closely linked to active than to passive use of social media.” Moreover, science consistently shows us is that the more time teen girls spend on social media, whether the use is active or not, the more likely that they will be depressed, suicidal, and engage in self-injury.

Common Sense Media’s Impact on Kids’ Health and Success

CSM’s wildly contradictory health advice to audiences weighted towards Black and Latino kids as compared with more affluent audiences is appallingly similar to Jim Crow laws, which sanctioned whites being provided superior services over Blacks. CSM’s false claims that screen time is less important to kids’ health (and that it may even be helpful) and that active social media use benefits kids are likely a key contributor to the dangerously high levels of screen time and social media use by kids, especially those of color.

Image: Ellion Erwitt, National Museum of American History

A 2025 Pew Research Center study looking at US teens ages 13 to 17 found that 4 in 10 teens report being online “almost constantly.” This only tells half the story. According to the Pew study, “Black (55%) and Hispanic teens (52%) are about twice as likely as White teens (27%) to say they’re online almost constantly.” Likewise, Black and Hispanic kids are spending much more time on social media than white kids. As highlighted in the Pew study, 37% of Black teens and 34% of Hispanic teens report being on TikTok “almost constantly” as compared with only 10% of white teens. And 22% of Black teens and 20% of Hispanic teens are on Instagram “almost constantly” as compared with only 5% of white teens.

Black and Latino kids’ higher levels of screen time are a key contributor to their dangerous levels of obesity. That’s because screen time is a significant contributor to child obesity—and more screen time equals more risk. A 2025 Annals of Internal Medicine study looked specifically at data from 2021 to 2023 of kids ages 2–19. It found that white youth obesity rates are at 18.2 percent, while Black kids were at 35.8 percent and Mexican American kids at 28.1 percent.

In my clinical practice as a child and adolescent psychologist in an integrated health care setting, I see daily the effects of this generation of kids living their lives sedentary on screens made addictive through the secret science of persuasive design as I describe in my book Better Than Real Life. The kids in my practice most at risk are Black and Latino kids, with a disproportionate number being diagnosed as severely obese or prediabetic in good part because of their screen-based, inactive lives.

The peer-reviewed literature is also clear that screen time hurts kids’ academic success because it displaces the time kids would have otherwise spent in academic-supporting activities such as homework and reading. And the heavy screen time of Black and Latino kids is a key reason that they perform less well academically than white students. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card,” speaks to levels of student achievement across the country. A 2025 Hunt Institute article describing the latest results tells us: “Black, Latino, and low-income students continue to score significantly lower than their white and higher-income peers.”

Without a doubt, the screen-time-caused academic struggles of these kids of color make it more difficult for them to gain admission to college. In contrast, Steyer says that his own kids (who received strict media limits) gained admission to prestigious Stanford University.

Reinforcing evidence that CSM harms kids by promoting social media to them, Meta was recently found liable in a lawsuit filed by the state of New Mexico for failing to protect children from sexual predators. This suit, independent of the social media addiction lawsuit, also found that Meta-owned sites such as Instagram showed child sexual abuse and exposed kids to solicitation for sex trafficking. As we have seen, CSM urges an audience weighted towards kids of color to engage in “active use” of social media.

Follow the Money

Why does CSM risk the health of children, especially vulnerable kids of color, by working against science to promote kids’ use of social media and other screens? The answer is that it makes millions and millions of dollars doing so. CSM has taken between $2.5 million and $4.9 million from Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Zuckerberg runs Instagram, which I believe has shown that its primary desire for kids is to increase their time on the platform, develop a persuasion profile on them, and profit from them—no matter the cost to kids’ health. CSM’s social media marketing to kids disguised as health guidance helps Zuckerberg achieve his profit goals. Snap Inc., the owner of Snapchat, is also a corporate partner of CSM.

Mark Zuckerberg, owner and founder of Meta / Image: Andrea Hanks-Wikimedia

Social media corporations pay CSM to market their products because their reputations are tainted while CSM’s powerful PR has convinced many that it can be trusted with children’s health. As social media addiction lawsuit documents read: “YouTube pursued partnerships with organizations like . . . Common Sense Media due to [its] reputation as highly credible sources of information for educators and parents.”

CSM is trusted because parents and others who care for children believe its claims that it is an independent judge of the health effects of screens. In a 2020 report, Jim Steyer asserts, “We started the Common Sense Research program in 2012 to provide parents, educators, health organizations, and policymakers with reliable, independent data on children’s use of media and technology, and the impact it has on their physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development.” Another CSM report declares that the organization stands for a “healthy childhood” and provides “advice, research, and community outreach to support kids’ mental, physical, and emotional health and explore tech’s effects on well-being.”

Steyer’s and CSM’s claims the organization is “independent” in its health judgments about screens—as demonstrated by the evidence I present here and in Better Than Real Life—are absolutely false and mislead a nation. Hence, like the social media corporations it provides marketing for, CSM is at risk of being named in lawsuits because it misinforms the public about the risks that social media and other screens pose to kids’ health.

More examples that CSM is absolutely not an independent health organization proliferate. CSM’s for-profit affiliate Common Sense Networks actually makes money directly by increasing kids’ screen time. It has its own screen platform, Sensical, which is an entertainment digital streaming service for kids starting at two years of age. Clearly, the more time kids spend in front of Sensical screens watching ads, the more money the organization makes.

Common Sense Media can’t protect kids from Big Tech because Common Sense Media is Big Tech.

Yet CSM’s primary business appears to be promoting kids’ use of EdTech, or educational technology. CSM’s most recent EdTech venture is to take funds from AI (artificial intelligence) giant OpenAI to convince educators through courses of the benefits of using OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT.

CSM promises to provide educators “hands-on strategies for using ChatGPT in the classroom” in spite of lawsuits alleging that this and other similar chatbots are responsible for multiple deaths of young people. As described in a New York Times article, “At first, Adam Raine, 16, used ChatGPT for schoolwork, but then he started discussing plans to end his life.” The chatbot is alleged to have assisted in Adam’s death by offering him advice on hanging techniques.

Early evidence also suggests that kids’ use of AI will hurt their ability to learn. A recent MIT study used brain scans to study adults who relied upon ChatGPT to write multiple essays over time. The researchers found signs of “cognitive debt” and “low effort” in ChatGPT users as they increasingly copied and pasted from the AI tool.

The bottom line: CSM can’t protect kids from Big Tech because CSM is Big Tech—specifically its chief marketing arm to sell social media, AI, EdTech, and other screens to kids.

How Can We Protect Kids

While I’m quite certain that CSM’s true business purpose as an industry marketer is well understood by those in its top leadership positions, I believe the good people who carry out its teachings simply believe they are helping kids. So while I feel it’s important to reveal the true nature of CSM, I also understand how difficult a message this is for some. I imagine it’s much like finding out that a trusted friend has betrayed not only you, but your kids.

It’s because CSM betrays our trust that it is especially dangerous to our kids’ health and well-being. I therefore recommend the following actions:

Schools

I believe that schools and the National PTA (which says CSM is a collaborator) should terminate all associations with CSM, including its Digital Citizenship Curriculum and OpenAI-funded instruction for teachers, because of the organization’s harmful and racist actions.

Lawsuits against social media companies abound. Schools and districts, I believe you put yourselves at legal risk by showing your students CSM’s Digital Citizenship Curriculum which pushes kids to use harmful and addictive social media. Attendance laws mandating that kids attend school make it so that schools and districts are accountable for the health impacts of programs shown to kids during the school day. Sure, CSM claims its program is “educational,” but court documents expose CSM as an industry-funded social media marketer.

Parents

Join together with other concerned parents at your child’s school to approach its administration to demand that your school discontinue the use of CSM’s Digital Citizenship Curriculum. Explain that you do not consent to your child being shown a dangerous industry-funded screen- and social-media-marketing program labeled as “educational” during the school day.

If you don’t get the response you are looking for, I recommend having your school district’s legal representatives hear your concerns. The world is now waking up to the harm done to children by social media corporations. Attorneys will therefore likely recognize how schools put themselves in legal and financial peril by showing their students CSM’s industry-funded social media promotions during the school day.

Child Health Organizations and Experts

Publicly call out CSM as industry-funded, anti-science, harmful, and racist. The fact that CSM—a Mark Zuckerberg–funded organization that profits by putting kids before screens—has been able to hijack pop-culture messaging about the health effects of screens is both embarrassing and an epic public health failure. By remaining silent about CSM’s false claims, such as screen time being less important to kids’ health than science shows, the health community is increasing the risk of child obesity and other serious child health problems.

Additionally, ensure that all families, no matter their race or income level, get the same science-based recommendations to limit social media and screen time. This will promote kids’ physical activity and other real-world engagement necessary for healthy child development.

Giving All Kids the Childhood They Deserve

CSM’s ability to convince many that it is an independent child health organization while actually being an industry-funded marketer of social media and other screens to kids is one of the greatest PR coups in history. Now that court documents reveal CSM’s true purpose, how will parents and others who care for kids respond? I am hopeful that, with CSM’s betrayal exposed, positive steps will be taken to provide all kids the healthy and successful lives at home and school that science says they need.