EAST LANSING, Mich. – On March 25, a California trial awarded $6 million to a plaintiff who argued that the addictive qualities of social media had caused her harm. Google and Meta, which were the companies that were found liable, disagree with the verdict and intend to appeal.
Dar Meshi , an associate professor of advertising and public relations at the Michigan State University College of Communication Arts and Sciences , studies the psychology of technology use, including social media. He recently authored a commentary for the journal Nature about social media addiction and can discuss what an addictive behavior is, whether or not social media is addictive, and if social media addiction should be taken more seriously.
Answers are excerpts from Meshi's Nature commentary.
What are the impacts of excessive social media use?
Case-based evidence has linked excessive social media use to psychological distress and impaired functioning in some people, for example, through job loss, relationship problems and academic failure. This use has been associated with differences in the structure and activity of reward-related brain regions and with impaired decision-making. Such features are observed in substance-use disorders too.
But the issue is complex. Outcomes associated with social media use vary widely, depending on how and why people use the platforms. 'Active' habits such as posting, commenting and messaging have been linked to positive well-being — unlike passive scrolling. And social media can provide social support to marginalized groups, such as young people from sexual and gender minorities.
What's more, the field's literature is dominated by research that is correlational, not causal — mine included. Another issue is that researchers are still debating how to measure social media addiction, including the threshold at which social media becomes problematic.
Do these impacts mean that social media is addictive?
Despite more than two decades of study on social media use, many researchers like me are wary of using the label of 'addiction.' That's because there is no general agreement on whether social media use can meet current standards for addictive disorders. More rigorous research is needed, along with guidance from professional bodies such as the American Psychiatric Association, or APA. This could help to establish whether social media addiction is a clinical phenomenon — and, if so, which criteria could be used to diagnose it.
What makes a behavior a clinical addiction?
In the United States, a formal designation of social media addiction as a clinical disorder can only come from the APA. Its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also commonly referred to as DSM, defines these conditions and guides clinical assessment and research.
The fifth, and most recent, edition of the DSM was published in 2013, before much of the evidence around problematic social media use had accumulated. For the APA to categorize a behavior phenomenon as an addictive disorder, the phenomenon has to meet a range of benchmarks. These include showing that the behavior causes real harm in a person's life, that it is linked to an underlying biological process and that the benefits of labeling it as a disorder outweigh potential harms such as stigma.
In 2013, the APA considered social media addiction to be part of general internet addiction, which did not meet these criteria.
Could social media become classified as an addiction in the future?
No new diagnostic guidance was provided in a 2022 update to the DSM-V, nor could I find any mention of social media or addictive behaviors in plans for the future of the DSM, which were published in January. Yet the APA's website has educational information on "social media addiction," showing a lack of alignment with its diagnostic guidance.
What is the issue with the misuse of the term 'addiction'?
Wrong use of the term addiction could lead to everyday behaviors being pathologized. Medicalizing an intense behavior because of poor methods and measures — in effect, lowering the threshold for what counts as addiction — could waste medical resources and strain health care systems. Wrongly diagnosed people could experience stigma and be prescribed unnecessary medication.
By contrast, formally designating social media use as an addiction would provide mental health practitioners with standard diagnostic criteria, thus improving screening and the development of treatments. It would also give researchers guidelines for categorizing study participants, making addiction research more robust.
Should social media be taken seriously as an addiction?
The APA must engage with the current research around social media use. Its future plans include establishing subcommittees that will focus on various aspects of mental disorders — biomarkers, socio-economic determinants, impaired functioning and more. It is crucial that each subcommittee includes experts in behavioral addictive disorders. Current evidence can then be used to determine whether problematic social media use should be defined as addictive and — if so — to delineate clear criteria for diagnosis, with decisions being revisited over time.
Knowing what users do and see on platforms would improve researchers' understanding of individual differences in social media use and its impacts. Policymakers could require social media companies to provide secure access to anonymized behavioral data, or identifiable data with user consent, under strict privacy safeguards.
There's an urgent need for better information about what constitutes social media addiction. Its existence should not be debated in the courts and by jurors, but by trained experts, determined by data.
By Paige Higley
