Parental vs. Corporate Responsibility - Alexis Spence
A young woman's parents sue Meta for causing her to develop several different disorders, all the while deflecting any blame from themselves
Kathleen and Jeff Spence, parents of Alexis Spence, now 20, filed a lawsuit against Instagram’s parent company, Meta, in June of this year. Spence stated that the Instagram app, which she downloaded at age 11 against her parents’ knowledge, caused her to develop an addiction to social media, severe depression, an eating disorder, and suicidal ideations. The suit claims that Kathleen and Jeff “were emotionally and financially harmed by Meta’s addictive design and continued and harmful distribution and/or provision of multiple Instagram accounts to their minor child.”
Interesting phrasing, wouldn’t you say? Alexis’s parents allowed her to have a cell phone at age 11. They did not monitor her activity in any way, shape, or form. As a result, she carried on with her covert social media addiction for years, and has since developed multiple mental and physical issues. And yet Kathleen and Jeff are the ones who were emotionally and financially harmed?
This case is very concerning for many different reasons, but I’d like to primarily focus on one point: if the court rules in favor of the Spences, they will be rewarded for bad parenting. Kathleen and Jeff are attempting to capitalize on the misfortune brought upon their daughter due to their own parental neglect. Some may say this criticism is too harsh; Kathleen and Jeff had parental controls on Alexis’s phone which they likely thought would be sufficient enough to protect her. I completely agree with that assumption - but it’s not enough to redeem their actions.
Parental controls and other methods for limiting a child’s online activity today are not as common as you might think, and they’re being used as a substitute for good parenting rather than an aid to it. Among parents whose children own a smartphone and regularly go online, a survey found that only 60-61% monitor their child’s internet and social media activity, with far fewer utilizing parental controls and other restrictions.
Had they been more involved in their parenting, Kathleen and Jeff might have questioned whether exposure to a smartphone for their child was ever a good idea to begin with. A 2020 survey found that 60% of children in the U.S. had had direct interactions with smartphones before the age of 5 (31% of the 60% had direct interactions before age 2). While this activity among children is becoming more common, it’s far from normal; the WHO has stated that sedentary and immobile activities are very detrimental for children age 5 and younger, activities which are promoted by screen time. Additionally, a causal link between screen time and behavioral issues in children was found in a study conducted by a subsidiary of the NIH.
As a bit of anecdotal evidence, I see all these ailments practically every time I’m eating out at a restaurant (I’m sure many others have, as well): parents bring their children with them, children who have been dependent on screens for a large portion of their lives. As a result, the child does not know how to engage in a social environment for an extended period of time without the help of screens, and they clamor for a smartphone to entertain them while they wait. The exasperated parent succumbs and hands them an iPhone, a tablet, whatever it may be, to quell the child’s tantrum - thus perpetuating the very issue that is causing them such exasperation.
Moving from elementary age to the teens, the effect of smartphones and social media still remains largely negative. A 2018 study found that social media usage, especially taking and posting “selfies,” had detrimental effects on self-image and ability to relate to peers. Several other studies have corroborated that an increase in phone usage has a positive correlation to increase in anxiety, impulse control issues, depression, and other disorders.
By the way, for any social justice warriors out there who may disagree with my stance, I’d like to mention that a survey conducted in 2015 found that these issues typically impact African-American and Hispanic teenagers more than Caucasian teenagers.
Returning to Kathleen and Jeff Spence, there’s clear evidence that their decision to give their daughter a smartphone was ill-advised. But, in the context of the lawsuit, who’s truly at fault here?
California (where the lawsuit was filed) has established CACI 410 - Parental Liability, for cases where a child is found at fault in order to determine if the parents are liable for the child’s actions. The Drexler Law Firm summarizes the criteria of CACI 410 for parental liability as follows:
The defendant parent(s) either observed the minor’s dangerous behavior that led to the plaintiff’s injury or was aware of the minor’s habits or tendencies that created an unreasonable risk of harm to other persons;
The defendant parent(s) had the opportunity and ability to control the conduct of the minor; and
The defendant parent(s) were negligent by failing to either exercise reasonable care to prevent the minor’s conduct or failing to take reasonable precautions to prevent harm to others.
In other words: when a child commits a crime against another person, the parents can be held liable if they observed the behavior that led to the crime, had the opportunity to control the behavior, and neglected to prevent the child from committing the crime. But what about cases where the child is both victim and perpetrator, as with Alexis Spence? Following those same criteria, Kathleen and Jeff surely observed Alexis’s behavior day-to-day, and would have noticed the changes in her behavior from social media addiction, as well as her other disorders. Kathleen and Jeff had the opportunity to control Alexis’s behavior as her parents (and, if they claim that they didn’t, that raises even more concerns about the legitimacy of their parenting). And lastly, Kathleen and Jeff not only neglected to prevent these health impacts from occurring, but in fact aided them by giving Alexis the smartphone in the first place. Had they never allowed her a phone as a child, Alexis would be a happy, healthy young woman at the outset of a full life.
This publication, A Quick History, is all about looking at current events with a perspective of historical precedence. And, as you may have noticed, there’s been a lot of current in this story, but no historical thus far. That’s because the Spence lawsuit isn’t the current event, in my view, but rather history in the making that could drastically alter our future.
How, exactly? As I’ve said, I don’t believe that Kathleen and Jeff are victims here by any stretch of the imagination. Say what you will of Meta and their dubious practices, but nothing they’ve done in relation to this story is illegal (morally dubious, almost certainly - illegal, not so much). The only victim here is Alexis, and the only perpetrators are her parents. To allow your child to engage in any frivolous activity without 100% guarantee of their safety and wellbeing is negligence as far as I’m concerned. If the court rules in favor of the Spences, they will be rewarded for neglecting their child. This gives me great pause, as I think about the lawsuits we’ll see just a few years from now when children who have undergone gender transitions at the behest of their parents and doctors experience regret.
Let’s be clear: trans regret is real. Plenty of medical sites and personal stories have come out in recent years to seriously discuss this very topic. There have already been lawsuits initiated against institutions like the NHS by adults who were frivolously hurried along the transgender assembly line. One plaintiff, Ritchie Herron, was an adult when he went to his first gender consultation. After only an hour of consultation, Ritchie was diagnosed as transsexual and was recommended to begin hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Mind you, this is a case involving an adult; cases with children are being fast-tracked just as drastically in the U.S. These practices, both transgender ideology and smartphone usage, reverse the role of parent and child by telling the child to go forth into the unknown while the parent learns from their experience.
A determination in favor of the Spences would send a clear message to children who have been sold to the transgender lobby and big pharma by their parents, and that message is, “you are not the victim.” A determination in favor of the Spences would tell these children that their destiny is nothing more than to be a bargaining chip for their parents to coerce settlement money from corporations. A determination in favor of the Spences would forever brand America as a nation that rewards its criminals.