The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper: Season 1, Episode 10

1 - 10: Wired for Trouble

CNN Anchor and podcast host Audie Cornish delves into the perils of social media and chronicles the journey of three separate families, united by their efforts to hold social media companies accountable for the content published on their platforms. Cornish's investigation focuses on the experiences of three mothers and their children who have recently filed lawsuits against Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok. Their cases are part of a larger movement, with over five-hundred families currently suing the tech giants. The families claim the companies are exposing kids to harmful content and contributing to a mental health crisis among American adolescents – one that the US Surgeon General says is driven by social media. "These families are at the forefront of a new way of thinking about the value of social media in our kids' lives," said Cornish. "And their parents are helping to fuel a movement that could shape public opinion about whether tech companies could or should be made to do more to make their product safer." Cornish conducts interviews with Matthew Bergman, the attorney representing many of these families, the neuroscientists and psychology experts Mitch Prinstein and Eva Telzer about whether social media "addiction" is real, and longtime tech journalist Kara Swisher about the debate over who and how social media use should be regulated among kids.