Robert Reich: How Do We Protect Children From Becoming Addicted To Social Media?

My granddaughter began scrolling on a cellphone when she was around 2 years old, her index finger repeatedly swiping across its face as if she were already a teenager. 

Some of the 18-year-olds in my classes at Berkeley seem to suffer withdrawal symptoms when I ask them to put away their phones.

I see young people in restaurants sitting with other young people, none saying a word to each other as they lose themselves in their devices. 

Are they addicted? Yes, if you define addiction as getting such a dopamine rush that they feel compelled to use their cellphones for hours at a time. 

How similar is this to a nicotine addiction? And — as was a central question 30 years ago when Big Tobacco was being sued — is Big Tech intentionally designing its product to hook young people? 

The answer appears to be that the addictions are quite similar, and Big Tech is just as culpable as Big Tobacco. 

On Wednesday, in California, a young woman prevailed in a lawsuit against social media giants Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube, in which she accused them of designing their apps to be as addictive and harmful to adolescents as cigarettes. Jurors found the tech companies to be negligent in having failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential dangers of their products.

What seemed to persuade the jury were features that Meta and YouTube had built into their software like infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations, and autoplay videos — designed to get young users to compulsively engage with the platforms. 

Internal company documents from Meta and YouTube executives showed they knew of and discussed the negative effects of their products on children.

In fact, this case and many others likely to follow in its wake (more than 3,000 other similar lawsuits are pending in California courts against Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok) are rooted in the litigation against Big Tobacco 30 years ago, in which plaintiffs argued that the tobacco corporations created addictive products that harmed their users. 

I’m old enough to remember when U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry issued the first landmark report warning that cigarette smoking causes cancer and other diseases, on January 11, 1964. I was a teenager then, quietly debating with myself whether to look cool by having a cigarette dangling from my lips. 

The report, titled Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, sparked a national shift in public health — leading in 1965 to mandatory warnings on cigarette packages. The report and the warnings, and the hullabaloo surrounding them, put me off smoking.

Almost 60 years later, in 2024, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy called for adding warning labels to social media, explaining that the platforms were associated with mental health harms for adolescents. He wrote:

“The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor. 

Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours. Additionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.

It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

He’s right. A surgeon general’s warning label would remind parents and adolescents that social media may be unsafe. 

Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior. When asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children’s social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes.

But we shouldn’t stop there, and Big Tech shouldn’t be able to use warning labels as a defense to future lawsuits claiming social media addiction among young people. 

Meta, YouTube, and other social media platforms must redesign their products to be less addictive to minors. Yet, as with Big Tobacco, they’re unlikely to do this unless liability judgments against them start mounting substantially. 

In the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, the major tobacco companies agreed to pay over $200 billion to 46 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia to settle lawsuits over smoking-related health costs. The settlement imposed strict marketing restrictions and funded anti-smoking campaigns.

Now, cigarettes are prohibited in most workplaces and public spaces. The Food and Drug Administration restricts tobacco sales to individuals 21 or older. Additional rules under consideration target menthol flavors and reduce nicotine levels.

We need to protect our kids from social media no less strictly. Why not ban children under 16 from using social media, prohibit its use in schools, and have Big Tech pay for anti-social media campaigns directed at young people?

In December, Australia issued a ban on young people using social media. Malaysia, Spain, and Denmark are considering similar rules. American children deserve no less.

• This article was published at Robert Reich's Substack