If you have Instagram or TikTok, you’ve probably been caught up in that constant river of videos, each one funnier and more interesting than the last. You like them, you share them, sometimes you comment and you continue seeing more. Without realizing it, an hour has passed. It is the phenomenon of doomscrolling and that is the reason why Meta, TikTok and Google have sat in the dock in the US. Now, the jury’s verdict is coming.
The accusation. It all started with the complaint of Kaley, a 20-year-old girl, who accused Instagram, YouTube and TikTok of having designed their products to encourage addiction which ended up harming her mental and physical health as a child. He claims that one day he spent 16 hours on Instagram. Now, a jury decides whether his addiction was his fault or the design of these social networks; infinite scroll, autoplay and algorithms expressly designed to trap us for as long as possible.
Why it is important. It is not the only complaint about the effects of social networks on mental health (they say on BBC that there are more than 2,000 similar lawsuits), but Kaley’s has become a reference case for being the first to reach court and also with a jury. The trial has been compared to the one that put the tobacco companies on the bench at the end of the 90s, it now remains to be seen if it has real consequences.
The defense. During the trial, internal Meta documents were provided in which some employees joked that Instagram was a drug and they were dealers. However, the platforms defend themselves by arguing that each user is responsible for their own use. The director of Instagram, Adam Mosseri said at trial that social media is not “clinically addictive,” and compared it to being addicted to a television series. In addition, they defend that they have implemented safety features, such as screen time limitations and rest reminders.
And now what. The platforms have been spared other accusations thanks to Article 230 of the Communications Decency Law, which exempts them from responsibility for what users publish on them. However, the lawsuit tries to get around this limitation by focusing on the design and not the content. If it succeeds, it will set a precedent and open a path for the thousands of lawsuits awaiting processing.
Still, it may not be enough for real consequences to occur. In statements to, New York Times Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School specializing in new technologies, says that even if the jury agrees with him, “it will not survive an appeal.”
Chip change. In recent years, the discourse of rejection of social networks has been growing (although its use has not decreasedparadoxically) and its effects on our mental health, especially that of the youngest. Australia has banned the use of social networks for those under 16 years of age and there are other countries that have shown themselves inclined to follow in their footsteps, such as Denmark either, recently, Spain.
In Xataka | Spending all day scrolling on Instagram or TikTok has a very specific effect on your brain: it dwarfs
Image | Wikipedia
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