The beginning of the end for social media?

Society has transformed in the last decades and the main reason is the use of social media and the phone. As a result, people stare at their phones for hours every day, tend to isolate, do administrative matters on the phone like paying bills and booking trips and do grocery shopping. And the list can go on. Many also do gambling, watch porn, get loans, plan terror attacks and other bad stuff. Most people are damaged on some level by the use of the phone and social media. It might be even worse for young people as there is a floodgate of issues related to impacting and forming young people. This has come under scrutiny recently. Last week, a Los Angeles ​jury found Meta and Alphabet’s Google negligent for designing social media platforms that are harmful to young people, in a $6 million verdict that will serve ‌as a bellwether for numerous similar cases.

The jury found Meta liable for $4.2 million in damages and Google for $1.8 million, small amounts for two of the world’s most valuable companies. The case involves a 20-year-old woman, a minor when the case began who is known in court by her first ​name Kaley. She said she became addicted to Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram at a young age because of their attention-grabbing design, such as the infinite scroll that encourages users to ​keep looking at new posts. The jury found Google and Meta were negligent in the design of both apps and failed to warn about their dangers.

Meta and Google disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal, ​spokespeople for each company said. U.S. law strongly protects social media companies from liability for what is on their platforms, but the plaintiff ​in the Los Angeles proceeding focused on platform design rather than content. Snap and TikTok were also defendants in the trial. Both settled with the plaintiff before it began. Terms of the agreements ​were not disclosed.

Recent media coverage highlights social media as a significant driver of modern loneliness, and artificial connection, with new apps and groups emerging to combat the curse of digital isolation. The reporting emphasizes that while platforms enable communication, they foster parasocial relationships and shallow interactions rather than meaningful, in-person bonds. This is not surprising as the phone is a technical devise and not a human. Contrary to simply abandoning technology, some approaches suggest that a healthier social media experience requires conscious changes in how one engages with platforms, prioritizing quality of connection over quantity. These insights suggest that overcoming this technological curse requires prioritizing face-to-face interaction over online presence. 

Social media has also led to increased political polarization as algorithms tend to continue feeding you what you are watching and searching. If you only look at left-wing media, in the end of the day, all your feeds will be left-wing. The same goes for right-wing, ultimately voiding the center. This has been apparent in media as well as in politics.

Despite the verdicts in California, it may be too soon to tell whether litigation will change the way popular social media and messaging platform’s function, or influence the complex algorithms that deliver content to billions of users worldwide and tech companies still are shielded from legal responsibility for posted content, based on Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The verdicts do not mandate specific changes to the design of social media platforms, nor to the algorithms that make them tick. Meta says it continuously works to improve safety and already has made changes that phase out encryption on Instagram and limit access to explicit content by teenagers, block unsolicited messages to children from adults and help young users manage time spent on its platforms and avoid sleep disruptions. Attorneys general in more than 40 states have filed suit against Meta, claiming it is contributing to a mental health crisis among young people. Most are pursuing remedies in U.S. federal court.

One could argue that the social media companies are going to face the same downfall as the cigarette companies did. Cigarette companies like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds faced a slow decline after negative public health evidence mounted, governments stepped in with regulation and cultural attitudes shifted. Social media companies like Meta Platforms, TikTok, and Snap Inc. are starting to face similar pressures with growing research linking heavy use of social media to mental health issues like anxiety and depression. As a result, lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny, especially around teens, are following. There is also a growing public skepticism about algorithms, privacy, and misinformation. Social media seems to slowly have entered the scrutiny phase, similar to that tobacco once did. After all, social media is inherently harmful in the same way and as a result, there will be heavier regulation, especially for kids and data use. As social media reputation will be challenged, there will likely be a shift in user behavior. It is no wonder TV shows like Seinfeld and Friends are staying relevant and popular, they both took place before people spent most of their days staring at their phones, where there were still human interactions and communication. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end for social media.