Social media companies are being sued for harming their users’ mental health – but are the platforms addictive?

Key Highlights

• Snap and TikTok settled the first case to go to trial, brought by a woman known as KGM, now about 20.
• The remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube, were set to go to court this week, but the trial was delayed because Meta’s senior attorney became ill. Notably, the plaintiffs’ cases do not hinge exclusively on the idea that they became addicted to the platforms.
• They allege addiction as the precursor to other severe harms, including depression, eating disorders, self-harm in the form of cutting, attempted suicide and, in at least one case, death by suicide. TikTok could be forced to change app’s ‘addictive design’ by European CommissionRead moreThe firms pushed back strongly on the claims.
• “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work … The allegations in these complaints are simply not true,” a Google spokesperson said.“We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” a Meta spokesperson said. TikTok and Snap Inc did not respond to a request for comment. Experts say proving, scientifically, that social media is addictive would be difficult, especially as the research community on the issue is moving away from the term “addiction” and more towards terms like “problematic use” or “use disorders”. Ofir Turel, a professor of information systems management at the University of Melbourne, and Dr Jessica Schleider, a clinical psychologist at Northwestern University, both acknowledged that social media can be harmful, but resisted calling it “addictive”. Turel said the term has become too common.
• “Everybody is saying, ‘I’m addicted,’ like it’s not a medical term.