Come on, we all know social media is addictive
Or how a lawsuit might shape the future of the online world
Something pretty interesting happened last week: Meta and Google were successfully sued by a woman who claimed their products were addictive and negatively harmed her health. The person in question (only known as Kaley) was awarded $6m (£4.5m).
There are a few different ways you could react to this news. One is slapping an L-shaped finger on your forehead and going, “duhhh, of course social media is addictive, who cares?” Another is thinking it’s another ridiculous American lawsuit where someone sues KFC for covering their fingers in chicken grease.
The third is pumping your fist and conducting a tiny joyful jig because this is some of the best news that’s come out in some time.
To start, let’s blast an obvious confetti canon: social media is addictive. Smartphones are addictive. There’s a deluge of research examining how companies like Google and Meta use psychological tools in order to keep people on their devices. Anyone who has used social media for any period of time innately understands that those apps and services are designed to keep you on them as long as possible. No one has a healthy relationship with Instagram. You’re either on it all the time or you’re never on it. And, come on, the average amount of time spent on TikTok is 1 hour and 37 minutes per day.
When you think about it, social media is similar to smoking; even if it makes you feel bad, you keep on doing it again and again. The only real difference is smoking looks cool while being on social media is lame and dull.
There’s also the fact that governments have attacked smoking for some time. Sure, there was a bit of a gap between the knowledge coming out that cigarettes caused lung cancer (1950) and banning cigarette adverts on TV (1965), but that was a different time. An older time.
We’ve known for a long time that social media is bad for people, especially young people, so why haven’t governments done much about it?
Much like cigarettes, it’s money and influence. Politicians don’t want to upset Big Tech companies not only because of the cash, but also because they control the flow of information. Social media wins elections, so best keep those companies on side.
That’s what makes the recent court case so important — especially in the context of the US and UK legal systems.
Basically, the UK and the US follow what’s known as common law, which differs from the civil law used in most European countries. This is almost an article in itself, but we can sum it up as so: common law generally governs by using the outcomes of previous cases.
Ergo, where civil law would create a specific regulation to tackle social media addiction, common law systems refer back to other court cases that tackled a similar topic.
Civil law uses written codes, common law uses previous rulings.
It’s why when something like abortion is talked about in the U.S., it’s through the lens of Roe v. Wade, not a specific case.
What we must hope for is that this social media addiction case is just the beginning. It’s wild to think that Big Tech has gotten this far without a proper crackdown. It’s clear that they’re effectively pushers, doing everything they can to manipulate humanity to increase screen time and make more money. That’s all they care about. Strip away any nonsense terms or thoughts of “connection” or “sharing” and you’re left with the cold, hard truth that social media is the same thing as smoking: get us hooked and keep us hooked.
The only saving grace is that, unlike cigarettes, social media isn’t cool. And the sooner more people sue the breeches off Big Tech, the better.