Welcome back to Did You See This? — the SUNN Post’s biweekly column spotlighting news that students like you (and me!) need to know. Read on for today’s headlines.
Did Meta design Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to teens? A California trial could have major implications for the apps’ users.
The Rundown
Today marks the beginning of the trial in which Meta, the parent company of social media apps Instagram and Facebook, will defend itself against claims that it designed the apps in ways that addict children and teens, damaging young people’s mental health. California, where the trial is taking place, is one of four states bringing the case against Meta. Together, California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking redesigns of the apps and demanding the company pay as much as $1.4 trillion. Earlier this month, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567 million in penalties.
For many teens and young adults, Instagram is often the epicenter of their social world — 80% of people between 18 and 29 reported using Instagram last year — so tweaks to the way the app works would be felt widely. Plus, broader changes to the algorithms that power apps like Instagram could have more repercussions: In some studies, 40% of children have had high or increasingly addictive use of social media — reducing the allegedly addictive qualities of these platforms may leave some users suffering withdrawals.
Where To Find More
For real-time updates on the case, check out in-state coverage from the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. The trial is expected to run through the end of the month.
The University of Michigan will pilot a new grading program meant to ease pressure on first-semester freshmen.
The Rundown
Starting with the fall 2027 semester, freshmen in the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Sciences and Arts — which makes up nearly half the school’s undergrad population — will no longer see letter grades on their transcripts for courses taken in their first semester. Though students will still receive grades for the classes, their records will only reflect a “P” for pass or “NC” for no credit. The grades will not factor into their GPAs. The university’s announcement of the pilot program cited student mental health as a driver and emphasized that the policy would encourage academic exploration and risk-taking.
Michigan isn’t the first university to introduce an initiative like this: Schools including MIT and CalTech still have lenient first-semester grading policies, while others, like Johns Hopkins, started but moved away from similar models.
At colleges using these policies, administrators and students say the approach eases the potentially rocky academic transition from high school to college. Discussing Brown’s similarly relaxed pass/fail policy, deputy dean Gilda Mossadegh said that “the hope is that our students are prioritizing learning the course material over actual grades.” Some critics, though, argue the policies just defer that difficult transition. When Hopkins abandoned their lenient first-semester grading policy, the university’s announcement claimed “faculty members say that too often covered grades merely delay development of study skills and adaptation to college-level work.”
Where To Find More
Though Michigan’s student body president called the change “an incredible thing,” emphasizing broad student support, not everyone is a fan. For opinions on both sides of the issue, check out articles published in the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Inside Higher Ed.
As AI-generated content risks clogging feeds and ruining the user experience, platforms are making slop removal a top priority.
The Rundown
In the past year, the term “AI slop” — used to refer to content generated with artificial intelligence that prioritizes attention and engagement over accuracy or quality — has evolved from internet slang to a catchall label for an ever-growing category of online material. Now, slop-flooded platforms are dedicating themselves to removal efforts.
Spotify claimed to have removed more than 75 million “spammy” tracks last year. LinkedIn has implemented a button for users to report AI-generated content and called reigning in slop a “top priority.” Digital platforms ranging from dating apps to review websites are cracking down on AI-generated content, too.
That’s good news for our brains — watching, reading or listening to AI slop may have greater cognitive consequences than users realize. For children and young teens, experts say AI slop can encourage fixation on violence and graphic content. For all users, the abundance of AI-generated content takes the “social” out of social media, forcing everyone to wade through “Fruit Love Island” reels and images of fish with shoes to find posts actually shared by your friends.
Where To Find More
Interested in learning how AI slop could be impacting your brain? Give this podcast from NPR a listen. Though many social media platforms are still figuring out how to reduce AI content, some have official settings or creative workarounds users can activate to keep slop off their feeds. For a rundown on those hacks, check out this Reddit thread.
The Bonuses:
Bookmark these longer reads for this weekend!
- From the Atlantic: “Why I Quit the Tenure Track”
- From Reason: “The Rise of Florida’s ‘Microschools’”
- From the New Yorker: “A.O.C.’s Eggs and the Working Woman’s Inconvenient Truth”
