A heartbroken mother has shared how her 11-year-old daughter was forced to commit suicide after becoming addicted to social media.
Tammy Rodriguez has told how her daughter, Selena, was once a young woman full of energy who “shone on stage dancing” and “lit up a room” in the years before she took her own life.
But that all changed after Selena became addicted to Instagram and Snapchat, losing sleep while constantly scrolling through the social media sites, Tammy said. told NBC Miami.
The grieving mother has since filed a lawsuit against the two social media giants, blaming them for her daughter’s death in July 2021.
It alleges that the companies “knowingly and intentionally designed, manufactured, marketed and sold social media products that were unreasonably dangerous because they were designed to be addictive to underage users.” This is reported by the Washington Post.
Selena Rodriguez took her own life at age 11 after becoming addicted to social media
She posted a video on Snapchat showing her taking her mother’s pills, which she later overdosed on.
Rodriguez, from Connecticut, said Selena started using technology when she was just 7 years old, watching videos on a tablet.
“When she got a little older, I ended up giving her a phone, and at first it was just games and videos, but then you could start to see a change,” he told NBC Miami.
‘She wanted TikTok, and I allowed her to save the videos as a draft, because she loved dancing, that was one of her big things, she would do it and save it.’
“But then he started sneaking around and posting stuff.”
Rodriguez said she thought she had access to Selena’s accounts, but her daughter created new ones that she hid from her mother.
Her mother, Tammy Rodriguez, said she tried to control her daughter’s use of social media.
Rodriguez said she only let her daughter have TikTok to save dance videos
As she continued to frequent those social media sites, Selena became violent, even attacking her older sister when her phone was taken away.
“She was barely sleeping, she wasn’t eating… she was developing an eating disorder,” Rodriguez said.
“In fact, everything in his world depended on those devices. He didn’t want to go anywhere unless he could take them with him.”
The situation worsened during the COVID pandemic, the Post reported.
Selena began skipping school, leading to an investigation by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.
She was also hospitalized for emergency psychiatric care and began self-harming.
At one point, Rodriguez even tried to confiscate Selena’s devices, but that only caused the preteen to run away so she could continue using social media, her federal lawsuit claims.
Selena’s social media addiction reportedly worsened during the COVID pandemic
Rodriguez eventually learned that her daughter was being bullied at school after photos Selena sent via Snapchat were leaked to her classmates.
She would later also discover that adult men were contacting the 11-year-old girl on social media and Selena succumbed to the pressure to send sexually explicit images on Snapchat.
It was on that app that Selena posted a video showing her taking two of her mother’s Wellbutrin pills with a sip of soda while NF’s song Paralyzed played in the background in July 2021. according to the Intelligencer.
She overdosed on those pills off-screen and died that night, which her mother described as “horrible.”
“It’s something you never imagine could happen in your world,” she told NBC Miami, adding that she is still dealing with the loss of her daughter three years later.
“Every day is something different,” Rodriguez said. “You don’t know where your emotions will be. You don’t know what triggers you.”
Tammy said Selena, right, became violent and once attacked her older sister.
Rodriguez is now suing Meta, Instagram’s parent company, and Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company, for contributing to her daughter’s mental health issues.
Rodriguez’s federal lawsuit now alleges that both Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) and Snap (the parent company of Snapchat) are “liable for causing and contributing to (a) growing mental health crisis perpetrated against children and adolescents in the United States.”
DailyMail.com has contacted Meta and Snap for comment.
But in a statement to NBC Miami, a Meta spokesperson said: ‘We want to assure all parents that we take their interests seriously in our work to help teens have a safe online experience.
‘We’ve developed more than 30 tools and features, including ways for parents to limit the time their kids spend on our apps, age verification technology, automatic restrictions so that kids under 16 don’t receive messages from people they don’t follow, and sending notifications that encourage teens to take regular breaks.’
A Snap Inc. spokesperson also said he could not comment on “any specific details of this ongoing litigation,” but stressed that “nothing is more important to us than the well-being of our community.”
‘We work closely with many mental health organizations to provide in-app tools and resources for Snapchat users as part of our ongoing efforts to keep our community safe.’
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to apologize to families who say social media contributed to their children’s suicide or self-harm at a congressional hearing in January.
A Snapchat spokesperson stressed that they are working with mental health organizations to provide support within the app. CEO Evan Spiegel appears at a Congressional hearing in January
Still, Rodriguez’s case would become the first in a multidistrict litigation involving lawsuits by more than 100 parents and teens (and one Seattle public school) against social media companies.
Thirty-three states have even sued Meta Platforms, arguing that it has “profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans” by “trapping” them in addictive cycles through its targeted algorithms.
Experts say social media could have the same effect on people as alcohol or drugs.
“Part of it is recognizing that addiction is a brain disease: it is a chronic, progressive, potentially fatal and manageable process,” said Dr. Adam Scioli.
“Unfortunately, it can get extremely dark,” he continued.
‘I mean, it’s not a stretch to compare this to any other substance use disorder, where the onset seems innocuous… it doesn’t seem risky.
‘At the other end of the spectrum, being terrorized or bullied by someone who doesn’t like what you posted… both of these experiences can lead to a range of mental health symptoms and certainly a mental health crisis, up to and including suicide.’
Scioli noted that teenagers may be especially susceptible to social media addiction because the human brain continues to develop until age 20 or 25, in a process known as “pruning.” Social media or substance abuse can disrupt that development.
In fact, the National Institutes of Health has reported that nearly a quarter of teens say they are “constantly connected” and about half admit they are “addicted” to social media.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is now calling on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms
To combat the mental health crisis, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is now calling on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis also signed a bill banning anyone under the age of 14 from having social media.
And in Congress, senators grilled Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Discord boss Jason Citron, X CEO Linda Yaccarino and Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel about how they protect minors on their respective apps.
Social media bosses insisted they do everything they can to protect young people from anything inappropriate, but admitted they cannot always keep track of accounts due to the size and scale of their products.
During those hearings, Zuckerberg was forced to apologize to the numerous families who say social media contributed to their children’s suicide or self-harm.
“I’m sorry for everything they’ve been through,” she said. “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through what their families have gone through.”