![\"William](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/proctor.jpg\")
William Proctor<\/p>\nIn February, a landmark case against the world\u2019s largest social media companies began in California and attracted a lion\u2019s share of press coverage. Speaking for the plaintiffs, lawyer Mark Lanier claimed that Meta and Google purposely designed social media platforms as \u201caddiction machines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside Australia introducing a complete ban on social media use for under-16s in December 2025, it\u2019s hardly surprising that parents are concerned. Emotive terms like \u201caddiction machines\u201d are almost guaranteed to trigger alarm among parents and policymakers.<\/p>\n
But does social media addiction really exist? And does research establish a connection between adolescent mental health and social media use?<\/p>\n
Many of the claims about social media addiction turn on the idea that excessive use works in the same way as drugs by triggering the release of dopamine, the brain\u2019s \u201cfeel good\u201d neurotransmitter. Some pundits claim that social media is the equivalent to smoking cigarettes or illicit drugs, a common but false claim in technology moral panics (indeed such comparisons have been identified as a warning sign of misinformation). Such allegations are widespread but misleading.<\/p>\n
There is at least some truth that social media use may cause a minor rise in dopamine levels, but not in a way that resembles drugs or qualifies as addiction. In fact, social media use equates more with other everyday activities, such as reading or kids playing outside with friends, pleasurable activities that we tend not to associate with addiction. Such activities cause dopamine to be released at around 50-100% of normal levels, while cocaine comparatively increases dopamine by 350%, and methamphetamine by 1500%. Neuroscientist Dean Burnett has called \u201cdopamine hits\u201d narratives \u201cscience garnish\u201d \u2026 giving the illusion of scientific language to overblown, nonsense claims.<\/p>\n
The addiction narrative can itself do harm. In one study, the perception by users that social media is addictive, due mainly to believing news media narratives, actually reduces self-efficacy and makes overuse more likely.\u00a0 Users who were skeptical of \u201caddiction\u201d claims had more healthy social media use.<\/p>\n
William Proctor<\/p>\n
More pointedly, social media addiction is not currently recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, nor included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR).\u00a0 There is no scholarly consensus that is should be included and the idea remains controversial among scientists who study technology and youth.\u00a0 One paper noted that, using the loose standards in some surveys of social media addiction, almost anything including real-life friendships could be made to look addictive and almost everyone is \u201caddicted\u201d to something. As those scholars note, much of the \u201caddiction\u201d narrative pathologizes healthy, passionate, engaged activities, including sports, fishing and dancing. Further, across studies, time spent on social media does not predict youth mental health.<\/p>\n
We do not pretend that social media companies are blameless. There is clearly much that they need to urgently address, such as the global spread of misinformation, online sexual predation, bullying, harassment and so on. But believing that your child is addicted to technology may lead you to embrace radical treatment options that may cause more harm, not less.<\/p>\n
It is worth nothing that the social media ban in Australia is not working. According to The Guardian\u2019s Samantha Floreani, around 7 in 10 children remain active on social media platforms. Many experts predicted that it wouldn\u2019t work, including those in the fields of digital rights advocacy, digital wellbeing and youth mental health organizations. More than 140 academics and 20 Australian civil society organizations wrote an open letter opposing the ban. The Australian government was aware that there was little evidence to support the ban, yet they proceeded to legislate nonetheless, perhaps doing what seemed politically popular rather than scientifically sound.<\/p>\n
![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Chris-Ferguson-stetson.jpg\")
Chris Ferguson is a professor of psychology at Stetson University.
\n– Original Credit: Handout
\n– Original Source: Handout<\/p>\n
Moral panics related to popular entertainment have been occurring for over 200 years in the Western world, beginning with cheap, sensationalist fiction and running through each new media technology of the day, including cinema, rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, heavy metal, video, computer games, pornography, Dungeons and Dragons, Harry Potter \u2026 the list is, quite frankly, endless. The history of moral panics should hopefully challenge us to a reasoned and responsible democratic debate rather than rely on increased government control over online platforms that will harm free speech rights for adults as well as youth. That would be the best way to care for our children.<\/p>\n
William Proctor is visiting fellow in Popular Culture at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. Christopher J. Ferguson is professor of Psychology at Stetson University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February, a landmark case against the world\u2019s largest social media companies began in California and attracted a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[483,482,139,141,140,109,76410],"class_list":["post-227463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}