Is social media addictive?

A case has started in the US in which a Califonia woman, known as Kelly GM in court, complained how using Meta Platforms’ Instagram and Google’s YouTube as a child affected her mental health. To understand the issues in the case, one must first understand the law that protects US-based Internet companies from lawsuits and why it has not protected them this time. The First Amendment to the US Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This classic example of negative law restricts the government itself from passing laws that impinge on citizens’ rights.

If the government should pass such a restrictive law, it has to prove in court that such a law was necessary to advance a governmental interest that inadvertently restricted freedom of expression or free press. Notably, the First Amendment does not protect the following types of expression: incitement, true threats, defamation, obscenity, child sexual abuse material, fraud and speech integral to criminal conduct. Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The complainants said that companies deliberately engineered their apps to “unpredictably, space out dopamine-triggering rewards with dopamine gaps”. Think about the joy you get when someone eventually comments on your WhatsApp status after 50 people have viewed it without leaving a comment.