Addiction Case, Your Child’s Problem Isn’t Social Media
A few months ago when the editor of Rahul Pandita’s debut novel asked me for a blurb, I wrote that his book was “addictive.” I thought I had found a way to say something meaningful about a book in a blurb, a form of praise that has become meaningless, filled with tired phrases like “tour de force.” But then I realized that I had not been paying attention to book covers. ‘Addictive’ is the new ‘unputdownable’. Apparently, the world believes addiction is a good thing, as long as it is said of a book.
Mark Zuckerberg is unlikely to ever give a blurb saying, “It’s addictive.” Because the founder of Meta is accused of being one of the world’s primary dealers of a drug. He is facing trial in Los Angeles, one that legal observers say might be a “landmark.” At the heart of the trial is the charge that social media is actually a drug.
The Kaley Trial
The trial centres around a 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley or KGM who accuses Big Tech companies of ruining her mental health from the time she was a child. It resulted in a host of ailments, she alleges, including suicidal thoughts.
Tech companies have been so accused before but have been protected by a US law against being held responsible for user content. This time is different. They have been accused of a willful “design” that harms people, especially minors, by making content consumption addictive. KGM’s lawyers have compared social media to tobacco giants, which consider cigarettes “a delivery device for nicotine.” Meta, which owns Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, are the primary defendants in the trial.
Zuckerberg testified last week and said that his company Meta shouldn’t be blamed for young women’s mental health, which may have been caused by a host of complex factors.
A Dissenting View
I agree with him. I must confess that I believe he belongs to a forgotten era when tech guys were good guys. But this view is not why I agree with him, a position that today is as perilous as saying one agrees with anything Big Tobacco had to say.
Psychologists testified, using phrases like “dopamine release” and “reward system,” that social media can be addictive. Even so, I feel social media is vastly different from drugs. Social media is not even as dangerous as sugar and junk food. People who say they have been harmed by social media are usually people who have had problems outside it, too, assuming they ever ventured there.
The Groupthink Problem
That social media is the cause of many modern ills is one of the world’s worst arguments, something that ironically resembles zombie-like groupthink. The consensus has become so strong that questioning it feels like heresy. But consensus is not evidence.
What’s actually going on is that technology is reflecting human nature very accurately and we don’t like what we see, just like many intellectuals don’t like electoral democracy anymore. The human mind is restless and drifts from one distraction to another. Some companies have found a way to make money off that.
And in doing so, they have upset the old media. Once, a different sort of people owned distraction, which was then called ‘attention,’ and they had the power to influence people, form governments, decide which book you will read, where you will eat and which film will fail. Now they have no influence. And they mostly blame social media for it, especially Facebook and all its avatars.
The Pre-Social Media World
It is not as though the world before social media was filled with focused ascetics. It was a distracted world with no less noise. The newspaper screamed for your attention; the page-turner now was designed to make you turn pages; the TV episode ended in some kind of cliffhanger.
Even an alarmist documentary called The Social Dilemma led by a good guy who called himself an ‘ethicist’ that was meant to instill fear in us about social media tried to keep us hooked through ominous music and a sense of imminent danger. Finally, this hyperbolic documentary played on Netflix, which is probably more addictive than social media.
The Elderly Example
Social media is not an addiction as much as a new way for the mind to drift. It is easy to get humans to drift that we don’t need to imagine a villainous outfit. We can see this in a demographic group that wastes vast quantities of time in visual stimulation and gets away with it because no one cares enough about them—the elderly.
Millions of old people spend their waking day watching TV, switching channels, and there is no secret scheme behind it. This is the generation that once watched static, waiting for their programming to begin. If we are going to talk about addiction, let’s talk about television. But television doesn’t have a convenient villain like Zuckerberg.
The Unintended Consequences
Still, isn’t it good that the world is making a moral fight of it? That we are using the mental health of teenagers to challenge big companies? No. I feel nothing good can come out of a poor analysis, even if it means well.
For instance, blaming social media for the mental health of the young will ensure we never understand the root of the problem, or whether it is a problem at all. We can see this in the defamation of artificial intelligence. The stupidest AI stories I have seen are about people who date AI bots. Such stories tend to blame AI for this and never speak of the mental history of their subjects, overlooking the fact that the sort of people who date AI are likely to have had issues long before AI cleared the Turing test.
As we get to know the true nature of the world, it appears that sanity is a minority condition.
A Mirror, Not a Cause
Social media is a reflection of our true selves. We may not like what we see, but that is not proof of its villainy. If millions of people are drawn to outrage, to distraction, to endless scrolling, that says something about us. It is easier to blame the mirror than to change what is being reflected.
This is not to say that social media companies are blameless. They have designed systems that maximize engagement, and engagement often means feeding us what we are most drawn to—even if that is anger, fear, or envy. But they are responding to human nature, not creating it.
Conclusion: Look Deeper
The trial of Mark Zuckerberg is a landmark, but it may be landmark for the wrong reasons. It risks simplifying a complex problem, creating a villain where none exists, and distracting us from deeper questions about human nature, mental health, and society.
Your child’s problem isn’t social media. It may be a hundred other things—family dynamics, school pressure, friendship difficulties, genetic predisposition. Social media may be where these problems manifest, but it is rarely where they originate.
Until we understand that, we will keep fighting the wrong battles.
Q&A: Unpacking the Social Media Addiction Debate
Q1: What is the Kaley trial about?
The trial involves a 20-year-old woman (KGM) who accuses Big Tech companies, primarily Meta (Instagram) and Google (YouTube), of ruining her mental health from childhood through willful “design” that makes content consumption addictive. Unlike previous cases, this focuses on product design rather than user content, comparing social media to tobacco companies’ deliberate design of addictive products.
Q2: Why does the author agree with Zuckerberg’s defence?
The author argues that social media is fundamentally different from drugs—it’s not even as dangerous as sugar and junk food. People harmed by social media typically have problems outside it as well. Technology reflects human nature accurately; we don’t like what we see. The human mind is restless and drifts; companies simply found a way to profit from that.
Q3: What evidence does the author offer that distraction predates social media?
The pre-social media world was equally distracted: newspapers screamed for attention, page-turners were designed to keep readers engaged, TV episodes ended in cliffhangers. Even alarmist documentaries like The Social Dilemma used ominous music and manufactured tension to keep viewers hooked. The elderly spend hours channel-surfing with no corporate conspiracy behind it—it’s just human nature.
Q4: What’s wrong with blaming social media for mental health issues?
Blaming social media prevents understanding the root causes of mental health problems, which may lie in family dynamics, school pressure, friendship difficulties, or genetic predisposition. It’s similar to blaming AI for people dating bots—such stories ignore subjects’ mental history. Social media may be where problems manifest, but rarely where they originate.
Q5: What is the author’s fundamental argument about social media and human nature?
Social media is a mirror reflecting our true selves—restless, distractible, drawn to novelty and stimulation. We may not like what we see, but that’s not proof of villainy. Companies design for engagement, but they’re responding to human nature, not creating it. The problem isn’t the mirror; it’s what’s being reflected. Until we understand that, we’ll keep fighting the wrong battles.
