In March of 2026, Google and Meta were sued for their websites and applications being addictive, being the primary source of the depression and anxiety of a woman who had obsessively used social media since a child. The woman received $6 million, $3 million from each company. Joseph VanZandt, the co-lead lawyer for families and others suing social media companies, said “Today’s verdict is a referendum — from a jury, to an entire industry — that accountability has arrived,”

However, how do we know the companies purposely refine their material to be addictive?
We begin with personalized algorithms. Say you’re on YouTube, watch a few cooking videos, and exit the app. The next time you open the app, you will be recommended more cooking videos because the algorithm is assuming you would like to see more of the content you enjoyed. By watching videos, you feed the algorithm, allowing it to curate your recommendations and create a space where you can indulge in all the content that interests you. This is how the application hooks you in. In a sea of content personalized for you, why would you ever want to exit the app?

Along with algorithms, apps like TikTok curate personalized content spaces within the confines of short-form video, allowing you to get a dopamine hit in a short amount of time. Pair these short-form videos with an infinite scrolling mechanism, and now you’ve got a user hooked on your app, always chasing that next hit of dopamine just a scroll away.

However, there aren’t just consumers of content on these platforms; there are also content creators. As human beings, our brains recognize validation from others as a social reward, activating the nucleus accumbens (the pleasure center) and releasing dopamine, which reinforces feelings of pleasure, safety, and connection. So when posting content on an app like Instagram, it is only natural that we wish to get many likes as validation from other people. Now, before you know it, you are relying on validation from other people to dictate how you feel about yourself as a person, causing depression and anxiety. So are Google and Meta at fault for this young woman’s troubles? The jury agreed, and so do I. When you engineer a product specifically to override a user’s impulse control, you bear responsibility for the consequences.

That verdict involved a single plaintiff. In a separate case, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta alone to pay $375 million in damages related to similar addiction claims. In response, a Google spokesperson said, “This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.”

With apps that target areas of your brain to keep your attention, we must take breaks and focus on our mental wellness. Start this week by setting a daily screen time limit on your most-used app. Apple and Android both have built-in tools for this under Settings. The AAP recommends no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day for teens. Try it for one week and notice whether your mood changes.