For years, big tech companies have placed the burden of managing screen time squarely on individuals and parents, operating on the assumption that capturing human attention is fair game.
But the social media sands may slowly be shifting. A test-case jury trial in Los Angeles is accusing big tech companies of creating “addiction machines”. While TikTok and Snapchat have already settled with the 20-year-old plaintiff, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is due to give evidence in the courtroom this week.
The European Commission recently issued a preliminary ruling against TikTok, stating that the app’s design – with features such as infinite scroll and autoplay – breaches the EU Digital Services Act. One industry expert told the BBC that the problem is “no longer just about toxic content, it’s about toxic design”.
Meta and other defendants have historically argued that their platforms are communication tools, not traps, and that “addiction” is a mischaracterisation of high engagement.
“I think it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified in the LA court. He noted that the field of psychology does not classify social media addiction as an official diagnosis.
Tech giants maintain that users and parents have the agency and tools to manage screen time. However, a growing body of academic research suggests features like infinite scrolling, autoplay and push notifications are engineered to override human self-control.
A state of ‘automated attachment’
My research with colleagues on digital consumption behaviour also challenges the idea that excessive social media use is a failure of personal willpower. Through interviews with 32 self-identified excessive users and an analysis of online discussions dedicated to heavy digital use, we found that consumers frequently enter a state of “automated attachment”.
This is when connection to the device becomes purely reflexive, as conscious decision-making is effectively suspended by the platform’s design.
We found that the impulse to use these platforms sometimes occurs before the user is even fully conscious. One participant admitted: “I’m waking up, I’m not even totally conscious, and I’m already doing things on the device.”
Another described this loss of agency vividly: “I found myself mindlessly opening the [TikTok] app every time I felt even the tiniest bit bored … My thumb was reaching to its old spot on reflex, without a conscious thought.”
Social media proponents argue that “screen addiction” isn’t the same as substance abuse. However, new neurophysiological evidence suggests that frequent engagement with these algorithms alters dopamine pathways, fostering a dependency that is “analogous to substance addiction”.
Strategies that keep users engaged
The argument that users should simply exercise willpower also needs to be understood in the context of the sophisticated strategies platforms employ to keep users engaged. These include:
1. Removing stopping cues
Features like infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications create a continuous flow of content. By eliminating natural end-points, the design effectively shifts users into autopilot mode, making stopping a viewing session more difficult.
2. Variable rewards
Similar to a slot machine, algorithms deliver intermittent, unpredictable rewards such as likes and personalised videos. This unpredictability triggers the dopamine system, creating a compulsive cycle of seeking and anticipation.
3. Social pressure
Features such as notifications and time-limited story posts have been found to exploit psychological vulnerabilities, inducing anxiety that for many users can only be relieved by checking the app. Strategies employing “emotional steering” can take advantage of psychological vulnerabilities, such as people’s fear of missing out, to instil a sense of social obligation and guilt if they attempt to disconnect.
Vulnerability in children
The issue of social media addiction is of particular concern when it comes to children, whose impulse control mechanisms are still developing. The US trial’s plaintiff says she began using social media at the age of six, and that her early exposure to these platforms led to a spiral into addiction.
A growing body of research suggests that “variable reward schedules” are especially potent for developing minds, which exhibit a heightened sensitivity to rewards. Children lack the cognitive brakes to resist these dopamine loops because their emotional regulation and impulsivity controls are still developing.
Lawyers in the US trial have pointed to internal documents, known as “Project Myst”, which allegedly show that Meta knew parental controls were ineffective against these engagement loops. Meta’s attorney, Paul Schmidt, countered that the plaintiff’s struggles stemmed from pre-existing childhood trauma rather than platform design.
The company has long argued that it provides parents with “robust tools at their fingertips”, and that the primary issue is “behavioural” – because many parents fail to use them.
Our study heard from many adults (mainly in their 20s) who described the near-impossibility of controlling levels of use, despite their best efforts. If these adults cannot stop opening apps on reflex, expecting a child to exercise restraint with apps that affect human neurophysiology seems even more unrealistic.
Potential harms of overuse
The consequences of social media overuse can be significant. Our research and recent studies have identified a wide range of potential harms.
These include “psychological entrapment”. Participants in our study described a “feedback loop of doom and despair”. Users can turn to platforms to escape anxiety, only to find that the scrolling deepens their feelings of emptiness and isolation.
Excessive exposure to rapidly changing, highly stimulating content can fracture the user’s attention span, making it harder to focus on complex real-world tasks.
And many users describe feeling “defeated” by the technology. Social media’s erosion of autonomy can leave people unable to align their online actions – such as overlong sessions – with their intentions.
A ruling against social media companies in the LA court case, or enforced redesign of their apps in the EU, could have profound implications for the way these platforms are operated in future.
But while big tech companies have grown at dizzying rates over the past two decades, attempts to rein in their products on both sides of the Atlantic remain slow and painstaking. In this era of “use first, legislate later”, people all over the world, of all ages, are the laboratory mice.
- is a Lecturer in Marketing and Consumption, Department of Marketing and Strategy, University of Leicester
- This article first appeared in The Conversation
