You probably heard about Social Media “Big Tobacco Moment” this week. A landmark lawsuit of multiple US states against Meta ended in a “historic settlement”. News outlets and the internet chose to cover this as if it were a trial about addiction. Well, it was not. And that is not all.
It is not possible to sue a company for creating addictive products or for knowing about the addictive nature of their products. From video games to energy drinks to sugar sweets, the market is full of addictive offerings, and many are marketed to children.
Meta was sued for misleading the public. Arturo Béjar, Meta’s former engineering director for the Protect and Care team, testified as the states’ first witness. Internal documents showed engineers’ concerns that some features, like endless scrolling, affect teenagers’ sleep and well-being. They called Instagram addictive. But the Meta officials publicly claimed that their products are safe, a direct contradiction to the internal documents. That is why Meta had to settle
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It was called the “big tobacco moment” not because it is as harmful as cancer, but because it could have triggered over a trillion dollars payout (according to Meta filings). It did not happen. The analogy came from concealing the information, not from the same magnitude of harm.
This is only the gist to make the point. There is more. For example, Meta has not admitted wrongdoing. Or that it is harvesting information from minors without consent.
This nuance matters to the parents. Our subconscious believes something is true if it was repeated enough times. So, most headlines claimed “social media is addictive” and others compared it to tobacco. The result? Parents felt as if allowing the kids to use smartphones is like giving them a cigarette. They were stuck because taking away the phone would mean social isolation, depression, and anxiety for their kids. But they were told giving the phone to them would cause a “mental health crisis”.
You damned if you do and you damned if you don’t.
The key to understanding is the word “addiction”. It could be read as a medical diagnosis or as “a strong inclination to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly” (Merriam Webster dictionary). The difference is that the diagnosis comes with scientifically established criteria, while the rest is vague. Diagnosis also implies causality. Alcohol addiction (abuse or dependence) is caused by alcohol. The problem with social media is that correlation (association) is clear and scientifically supported, but well-designed studies could not establish a causal link. Why?
Because it is probably not the phones themselves but the environment we live in. Our brains have evolved over millions of years to function in a band or a tribe, or a village. Look outside, does it look like we live in a village? I am lucky if I remember the names of my immediate neighbours, and I don’t even know what exactly they do for work or what their hobbies are.
That is the problem. The lost village created emptiness, a vacuum, then the phones came in to fill it.
I remember being 13, playing musketeers outside with my friends, using real sticks, trying to poke each other in the chest and not the eyes. Playing the same game on a 65-inch TV with a remote does not risk the eyes and, with lifelike graphics, I would not want to go out to play with a stick.
If the kids lose access to their phones, what are they supposed to do?
The parents gave them phones because it is free, fun and safe. The phone gradually became the only place kids can go on their own, unsupervised, choosing who to watch and who to listen to.
Their developmental task is to find themselves, try different identities. That is what they are doing online. Opportunities for real world testing are limited. Most teens I see in my clinic cannot get to a community center without a parent driving them. But even when they show up there, they mostly have to be enrolled in a program, have a membership, and be supervised.
The money from the settlement will, in part, go to mental health and educational programs for teens. It is about $12bln (plus $5bln conditional) over 10 years to 47 states plus DC and three territories. Across roughly 30 million exposed children, that is about $50 each per year. It is unclear yet what the states are going to spend the money on. A big part will go towards control and enforcement of consumer protection. Some funds will go towards therapists, digital literacy counsellors, after-school programming, crisis intervention, phone-free classroom grants.
Every one of those is something a child has to be registered for. Many kids will not even have a say in what support they will be getting.
Is it really going to help? Is it really going to fill the void?