“Daddy, that’s not fair.” The late, great P.J. O’Rourke used to joke about one of his young daughters pulling out the “fair” card, only for the satirist to respond with how unfair it was that she was so smart, so cute, so well-off, not to mention that she was born American. O’Rourke was cheerfully clear to her that she had better hope life never became fair.
O’Rourke’s perfect response about life in wildly prosperous America came to mind a lot while reading about this week’s jury verdict against Meta and Google. They were held liable for allegedly “fueling social media addiction for a 20-year-old woman,” and were ordered to pay $6 million in total damages. One can only hope the technology companies vigorously appeal the over-the-top verdict. For now, however, we can marvel at how the definition of addiction has evolved.
Ian Anderson (CalTech) and Wendy Wood (USC) recently observed in the Washington Post that “clinical addiction means more than overuse. It includes a cluster of debilitating symptoms, ranging from compulsive urges to withdrawal.” They note that when the clinical definition is applied to what some deem social media addiction, rates of pathological use become quite rare.
Of course, for those of us old enough to remember life before social media, addiction of old generally correlated with something quite a bit more terrifying than "doom scrolling." People with alcohol and drug addictions were not just dying, they were also a threat to everyone around them.
None of which is to completely dismiss those who can’t get enough of social media, but it is to say that as with so much else in life, “addiction” gets better by the day. What the parents of old would have given for addiction of the kind that associates with supercomputers.
Whereas parents in pre-social media days lived in constant fear of the prevalence of alcohol, drugs and the impact of both on their kids, with social media there’s an element of control that didn’t previously exist. Apple, Google, and other devices on which young people access social media are full of ways in which parents can not only strictly police screen time, but also times in which screens are viewed, what’s viewed, and so much more.
All that, plus the devices keep parents constantly aware of where their children are. And then if kids ever turn off the tracking devices, parents with power of the purse have the power to take the devices away.
Please contrast this with alcohol and drug usage/addiction that not only frequently takes place away from home, in locales that parents haven’t a clue about, and that is also so physically damaging. No doubt some people access social media more than others, and some perhaps too much, but withdrawal from social media is just that, while withdrawal from addiction to alcohol and drugs is generally preceded by potentially life-threatening damage inflicted on body, waste of mind, not to mention the potential for damage done to many others with automobiles.
Bringing it back to the jury verdict rendered in Los Angeles, it’s worth expressing hope once again that Meta and Google will vigorously appeal an outcome that recalls hot coffee (look it up) verdicts from long ago, minus the physical damage. How dangerous if the courts allow some of the world’s richest and most innovative companies to become a catchall source of lucrative blame.
Just the same, what a comment on how life is going. Paraphrasing O’Rourke, if social media is increasingly the unfair addiction, parents and young people had better hope that life never becomes fair again.
