#social-media-addiction

#social-media-addiction

The following allegations against Meta come from the brief filed in an unprecedented multidistrict litigation. More than 1,800 plaintiffs - including children and parents, school districts, and state attorneys general - have joined together in a suit alleging that the parent companies behind Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube "relentlessly pursued a strategy of growth at all costs, recklessly ignoring the impact of their products on children's mental and physical health," according to their master complaint.

When AI wearable company Friend blanketed New York City with ads last month, there was significant backlash. Many of the company's ads (which included rage-baiting copy like, "I'll never bail on our dinner plans") ended up defaced with graffiti that called the product "AI trash," "surveillance capitalism," and a tool to "profit off of loneliness."

Those whose use followed an increasingly addictive trajectory had roughly double the risk of suicidal behaviour at the end of the study.

"...recent research attributes this sort of habit-forming behavior to the release of dopamine that comes with a social media visit, the apps triggering our reward centers..."