Shannon Bond

But they also make this larger argument.

They say this idea around addiction, they really contest that.

They say there is not a clinical diagnosis of addiction to social media.

There isn't scientific evidence to prove that using social media affects your brain the same way that an addictive drug would.

They also argue that there is not enough evidence to prove that the overuse of social media in these cases is what led to those mental health harms that the plaintiffs are claiming.

There are lots of differences, right, between a cigarette and a social media app.

I would argue that there's probably very little benefit.

You could argue at all about cigarettes.

You know, social media is more complicated.

And I think that's one of the things that really is going to be interesting to see how the jury reacts to these cases.

Because

Like, look, I think there's no denying there could be really negative consequences of overuse of social media.

But, you know, the science isn't really clear that that is sort of a one size fits all outcome.

There's lots of beneficial aspects of kids using social media.

You know, there's connection to friends.

There's connection to communities, especially for kids who might be feeling isolated or you'll be able to reach out to other people.

So I think there's some differences there.

But in terms of this kind of moment of scrutiny of saying, you know, do we trust these companies?

Do we trust them the way, you know, what they know about their products and then sort of the public face they're putting on them?

I think that's sort of where the parallel is most clear.