Brittany Luce

It's a totally not a yes or no question that I'm going to pose to you as a yes or no question.

Is social media addictive?

So I don't know about all of you listening, but sometimes I am scrolling through social media and I lose track of time.

And suddenly I'm watching a rug cleaning video at three o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday.

Some of you might call this kind of experience quote-unquote addictive and bad for your mental health.

And you wouldn't be alone.

In fact, you'd relate to more than a thousand individual plaintiffs who are taking social media companies to court over the addictiveness and mental health impacts of their platforms.

These court cases are the tip of a user-led backlash against social media.

Is social media bad for your health?

A jury will eventually decide, but today I want to explore that question with a tech correspondent and an addiction expert who can help us tease out what addiction is.

And when does a social media norm cross the line from personal habit into personal pathology?

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

NPR correspondent Shannon Bond, welcome back to It's Been a Minute.

Hi, Brittany.

Great to be here.

Okay, so Shannon, you cover a lot of tech for NPR.

Off the jump, are you willing to admit...

You are or are not addicted to social media.

Geez, oh, Pete.