What really counts as social media "addiction?"
episodePreviously titled “Are you a social media “addict?” Only time will tell.” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Okay, I'm going to pose an impossible question to you. 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?
Yeah, so I would say it is a yes or no question. And some people feel very strongly yes. And some people feel very strongly no. And that's a problem.
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.
Is social media addictive?
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.
Well, I'll tell you a story that illustrates this, which is that my nine-year-old said, Mom, you have to delete Instagram from your phone. You are on it too much. And I did. And, like, I don't keep it on my phone. I'm not using it regularly. And I regret to inform you, I feel like I'm probably sleeping better, less distracted.
Geez, oh, Pete. Wow, they really meant it when they said kids are a mirror. I didn't know it was like that.
I didn't know it was like that. He's like, mom, I see you. I see you. And you need to get it off your phone. And he was not wrong.
Oh, my gosh. Well, the trial that's happening in Los Angeles right now gets to the heart of the matter. A jury is going to have to tease out whether or not tech companies intentionally built their platforms to hook young users and keep them on the platforms and whether or not that in turn caused harm to young people. And this is just the first of several cases that will make their way through the courts in the coming months and years.
What is the through line connecting these cases? So number one, they are saying companies like Meta, right, which makes Instagram and Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, have intentionally designed their apps to be addictive, to be really hard to put down. So things like infinite scroll, those constant notifications you get, like the way the algorithm works. So number one, they're saying the companies have done this intentionally. They want to keep you using them as much as possible. And then they're sort of saying as a second step, that overuse that these apps have encouraged among kids is contributing to a mental health crisis. We've been talking a lot in recent years about a mental health crisis among kids.
The plaintiffs are claiming that because of excessive use of these apps, it's causing things like anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and like I said, in some cases, really, really tragic outcomes.
Okay, so of course there's obvious things to point at that definitely feel addictive. Like, you know, you pointed out infinite scroll, autoplay videos, frequent notifications, and recommendation algorithms. What else do the plaintiffs allege against platforms like Meta, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:00
2
Is social media addictive?
2:00–4:10
3
What are the legal implications of social media addiction?
4:10–5:18
4
How do social media platforms contribute to mental health issues?
5:18–25:04
5
What are the arguments against social media addiction claims?
25:04–25:37