Brittany Luce

That's how they make money.

That's how they make money.

I mean, for their part, the companies are pushing back.

Meta, for example, says that, quote, these lawsuits misportray our company.

We stand by our record of putting teen safety first.

and will keep making improvements, end quote.

That's a lot to take in.

I know you see parallels between this moment with social media and the big tobacco lawsuits from the 90s.

How are they alike and how are they different?

Well, Shannon, thank you so much.

This has been extremely informative and I'm anxious to see how this unfolds.

That was NPR correspondent Shannon Bond.

So a jury will decide who will ultimately police social media.

Will it be up to the social media company to police themselves?

Or will the law intervene to regulate how and what a social media company can do to keep its users engaged?

But, and this is the big but...

That doesn't really answer the more philosophical question of whether or not social media itself is quote unquote addictive.

And that question gets at the heart of how we define and understand what addiction is in this country, from tobacco all the way to your algorithm.

So coming up, I'm going to try to answer that question for you.

I'm here with Carl Eric Fisher, addiction psychiatrist and author of the book, The Urge, Our History of Addiction.