Lawsuits Claiming Social Media Is 'Addictive' Gain Momentum

 Social media has been on trial for allegedly harming youth mental health, and tech companies have been facing uphill legal battles in recent months.

In a landmark case in March, a California jury found Meta and Google liable for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a child, awarding her $6 million.

Last month, a Kentucky school district secured $27 million in settlements after alleging social media companies fueled a mental health crisis among students. And the Supreme Court declined to hear Meta's challenge to a Vermont social media addiction lawsuit.

Other individuals, school districts, and attorneys general have brought cases, too.

Their strategy has been alleging that social media apps are designed to be addictive -- and those claims appear to be resonating.

"Unlike prior cases, which have primarily focused on harmful content like false or harassing statements, the plaintiff instead targeted the platforms' core design features," Ashley Shea, MS, a PhD candidate at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., told MedPage Today in an email regarding the California case.

Shea explained that the case used a "relatively novel argument" that "common features of social media platforms (such as autoplay, infinite scroll, and pull-to-refresh) exploit the cognitive vulnerabilities of the adolescent brain and therefore constitute defective and harmful product design."

Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act provides technology platforms protection from liability related to third-party content, but focusing on the design of the platforms themselves and how they allegedly "create an addictive experience for users" is a different strategy, said Cayce Myers, PhD, JD, LLM, of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

The cases recently brought against social media companies have been compared with the "type of cases that came out in the 90s against Big Tobacco," Myers said.

The argument that the "systems themselves are designed to be addictive," coincides "with a larger social discussion around the net impact of social media on the mental health of adolescents," he said.

Recent studies have suggested that addiction to screen time, including social media, was tied to suicidality in U.S. kids, that social media "detox" was linked to better mental health for 18- to 24-year-olds, and that increases in social media use during early adolescence were significantly associated with lower performance in key areas of cognitive function.

But it is important to interpret these and other findings with caution, experts said.

"I think we need to be clear that much of the relationship between social media use and mental health is correlation rather than causation," pediatrician Heidi Schumacher, MD, of the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine in Burlington, who also is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Communications and Media, told MedPage Today.

Additionally, "every child develops their own unique relationship with social media," Schumacher noted.

"I find that, for many of the young people I work with, social media can be a really positive experience," she explained, "especially marginalized youth in communities where they might seek connection beyond, say, their small community."

"Finding folks that they connect with in the bigger world can be a really positive experience, and yet of course, when social media becomes problematic or excessive, there can be real consequences," she added.

AAP has pushed for more child-centered design when it comes to social media. Platforms should prioritize child privacy, encourage critical thinking and healthy social connection, and offer age-appropriate content, Schumacher said.

The organization also has called for companies to help take the burden off of parents. For instance, Schumacher said: "When a new parent buys a car seat for a baby, it is their responsibility to install the car seat according to the instructions, and to strap their baby in consistently. But the parent has to rely on the manufacturer to build a car seat that has their child's safety top of mind, and on regulations to ensure that quality standards have been met. Why shouldn't we expect similar layers of protection for young people as they engage in digital media platforms?"

Meta and Google have denied direct links between social media use and mental health concerns and have said their platforms have safety features for kids, have pointed to the First Amendment as protection, and have appealed the California verdict.

What happens in that appeal and others will matter, Myers said. "People are paying attention to it," he said. "These lawsuits are paralleling a larger societal discussion on the topic."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/121698