Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found

A group of 41 US states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit last week against Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger – contending that the company knowingly used features on its platforms to cause children to use them compulsively, even as the company said that its social media sites were safe for young people.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” the states said in their lawsuit filed in federal court. “Its motive is profit.”

The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behaviour: are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet?

Here’s what the research has found.

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What makes social media so compelling?

Experts who study internet use say the magnetic allure of social media arises from the way the content plays to our neurological impulses and wiring, such that consumers find it hard to turn away from the incoming stream of information.

David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of an organisation for internet and technology addiction, said the devices lure users with some powerful tactics. One is “intermittent reinforcement”, which creates the idea that a user could get a reward at any time. But when the reward comes it is unpredictable. “Just like a slot machine,” he said. As with a slot machine, users are beckoned with lights and sounds, but, even more powerful, information and reward tailored to a user’s interests and tastes.

Adults are susceptible, he noted, but young people are particularly at risk, because the brain regions that are involved in resisting temptation and reward are not nearly as developed in children and teenagers as in adults. “They’re all about impulse and not a lot about the control of that impulse,” Dr Greenfield said of young consumers.

Moreover, he said, the adolescent brain is especially attuned to social connections, and “social media is all a perfect opportunity to connect with other people”.

[ Why social media is hardly social any more ]

Meta responded to the lawsuit by saying it had taken many steps to support families and teenagers. “We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the company said in a statement.

Meta, which has its EU headquarters in Dublin, is no stranger to lawsuits. Last May, Ireland’s data regulator imposed a record €1.2 billion fine on the parent company of Facebook for violating European privacy rules.

The wheels of policy and regulation of online services move slowly. Seven years after the Law Reform Commission in Ireland recommended a new statutory oversight system, the State’s first Digital Safety Commissioner, lawyer Niamh Hodnett, was appointed last January to promote digital safety and to oversee efficient take-down procedures by online services.

Does compulsion equal addiction?

For many years, the scientific community typically defined addiction in relation to substances, such as drugs, and not behaviours, such as gambling or internet use. That has gradually changed. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, introduced the idea of internet gaming addiction, but said that more study was warranted before the condition could be formally declared.

A subsequent study explored broadening the definition to “internet addiction”. The author suggested further exploring diagnostic criteria and the language, noting, for instance, that terms such as “problematic use” and even the word “internet” were open to broad interpretation, given the many forms the information and its delivery can take.

[ Smartphones and social media are destroying children’s mental health ]

Dr Michael Rich, director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said he discouraged the use of the word “addiction” because the internet, if used effectively and with limits, was not merely useful but also essential to everyday life. “I prefer the term ‘problematic internet media use’,” he said, a term that has gained currency in recent years.

Dr Greenfield agreed there clearly are valuable uses for the internet and that the definition of how much is too much can vary, but he said there also were clearly cases where excessive use interferes with school, sleep and other vital aspects of a healthy life.

Too many young consumers “can’t put it down”, he said. “The internet is a giant hypodermic, and the content, including social media like Meta, are the psychoactive drugs.” – This article originally appeared in the New York Times