New Orleans       I don’t know if social media is addictive, but I do know almost any of us can slip down the hole they grease up and find ourselves an hour later wondering where time went.  If you have time to kill, it’s a weapon of choice, waiting in line, sitting in airports, at the DMV, and tens of other places easy to name.   I’m speaking as pretty clearly a fully-grown adult with goo gobs of self-control and discipline, but, if I’m honest, I’ve wasted some hours on Facebook and YouTube here and there, and I don’t believe I’m alone.

Now for children and teens, it’s not hard for me to see how they can get sucked into this space.  Juries in both Los Angeles and New Mexico in recent days couldn’t just imagine it happening, after hearing testimony in lengthy trials they awarded judgments that the very design from Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook applications could be harmful to mental health for youngsters.  In one case, they awarded $3 million in punitive damages and in the other more than $300 million.

The substance of these judgements was less about the content per se, than the fact the very architectures created by the companies were designed to hold the users’ attention repetitively.  Call it creating obsessions or addictive, there’s no question that these companies graded their effectiveness by the amount of time a user spent on their platform, and that’s what they sold advertisers.  Did they incorporate protections for children and adolescents?  Despite their claims, it’s hard to believe, and clearly juries were having none of it.  When the judge went through the 18 claims in interviewing jurors, there wasn’t much doubt in any of their minds.

The companies are of course going to appeal and continue to proclaim their innocence.  Reportedly, there are hundreds of similar, outstanding claims in California courts alone.  These decisions by juries are bound to open the floodgates.  Politicians have their ears to the ground as well.  Australia and Denmark have barred the companies from enrolling children younger than 16.  Others may follow.  School districts are restricting access to cellphones in red and blue jurisdictions across the US as well.

Having grown as business behemoths over recent years with virtually no accountability, partially because of legislation eliminating liability for their content, no matter how harmful, will these judgments finally hold their feet to the fire?  Their arrogance has been so colossal that’s it’s hard to take that bet.  They responded to the decisions self-righteously, which was predictable.  Their adverse impact on democracy and elections has led to little change, but harming children, especially in the developed world where they are ubiquitous might be different.

We can hope so, even if all the recent evidence is that they are all about the main chance and lack any moral or political compass.  There’s no putting these genies back in the bottle, but we should still demand a better bottle for children and maybe even the rest of us.  What should be a useful tool, can’t be allowed to be anyone’s master.