Brittany Luce

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.

Wow, they really meant it when they said kids are a mirror.