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When news broke about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/verdict-reached-in-landmark-social-media-media-addiction-trial">Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube</a> forking over $3 million to a 19-year-old user caught in the spider’s web, my first thought was something like, “Yeah! Screw Mark Zuckerberg!” A tech giant takedown warms the heart. 
My second thought was, “Wait, so can we all sue Facebook now?” What about “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” espresso martinis, Ben &amp; Jerry’s, Reddit comment sections, IKEA, pressure washing videos, Chick-fil-A, Roblox, weed gummies, March Madness, and Amazon Prime? There are countless other things we can’t quit.
With roughly <a href="https://youtu.be/iwPbm2To4Qw?t=97">10,000</a> other cases in the works against social media at large, it’s game on in the courts. “We’re figuring out that there is a causal connection between cancer and cigarettes,” tech journalist <a href="https://youtu.be/iwPbm2To4Qw?t=416">Jacob Ward</a> told CNN, likening the moment to the <a href="https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-tobacco-control/master-settlement-agreement">Big Tobacco</a> settlement of the &#8217;90s. “We’re at the beginning of an absolutely new era in thinking about how social media is really working on kids.” 
Using this analogy, despite raging against the machine, all the kids are still holding full packs of “cigarettes” and “chain smoking.” 
A <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-03-25/social-media-lawsuit-trial-meta-google-verdict">Los Angeles Times</a> headline read: “Landmark L.A. jury verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids.” Oh really? Was it the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/14/meta-and-google-trial-are-infinite-scroll-and-autoplay-creating-addicts">infinite scroll</a>, autoplay, <a href="https://ioufinancial.com/financial-insights/10-social-media-engagement-tactics-that-can-help-you-grow-your-audience-2/">polls</a>, quizzes, reels, algorithms, notifications, FOMO, or <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11594359/">dopamine dumps</a> that gave it away? Maybe it’s a little confusing since most of us describe our social media feeds as “addictive,” while social media calls this business model “<a href="https://bitly.com/blog/how-to-increase-social-media-engagement/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=20610041883&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAC3Maq4pYCZkL2FiRyXbdXH2hxDwC&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwspPOBhB9EiwATFbi5PLOH9cbbGJVhE56QWJTyENp_urJ-Q3hU4hy3GOj_0_Ywy12R73pwBoCQmcQAvD_BwE">engaging</a>.” Tomato, to-mah-to.
It all made me wonder when the responsibility for making good decisions floated off of our own shoulders and onto the desk of Deborah in HR. This is America. We’re free to like what we like and do what we want, and then sue the crap out of the companies that give us what we desire.
Has anyone ever sued Doritos for being too delicious? Yes. In 2025, <a href="https://cen.acs.org/policy/ultra-processed-food-pfas-pesticide-antibiotic-resistance-atrazine-cancer/103/web/2025/12">San Francisco</a> went after a bunch of snack companies, including Doritos’ parent PepsiCo, for “cheap, colorful, flavorful, and addictive” products, like they were looking directly at a bag of <a href="https://www.doritos.com/products/doritos-dinamita-flamin-hot-queso-flavored-rolled-tortilla-chips">Doritos Dinamita Flamin’ Hot Queso</a>.
Bringing a lawsuit against hot coffee before it was cool, <a href="https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts#:~:text=At%20least%20one%20juror%20later,attaching%20enough%20importance%20to%20that.%E2%80%9D">79-year-old Stella Liebeck</a> famously won $3 million in damages from <a href="https://www.tortmuseum.org/liebeck-v-mcdonalds/">McDonald’s in 1992</a> after she spilled coffee in her lap, giving herself third-degree burns. It sounds terrible. But McDonald’s didn’t pour hot coffee on Stella; Stella did, while holding it between her legs to add cream and sugar. 
Three years later, the bit appeared on “<a href="https://youtu.be/Qpru2vsqdN8?t=98">Seinfeld</a>” when Kramer scalded his groin with hot coffee in a movie theater. “We got a chance?” Kramer asks his defense attorney, Jackie Chiles. “You get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you’re gonna walk out of there a rich man,” says Chiles.
The scalding liquid lawsuits kept coming. There was the <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2017/05/19/starbucks-must-pay-jacksonville-woman-100000-hot-coffee-spill/15755762007/">$100,000 Starbucks payout in 2017</a> after Joanne Mogavero spilled hot coffee on herself. And a high-profile settlement in 2025 paid out <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-awarded-50-million-starbucks-hot-tea-rcna196616">$50 million</a> to 25-year-old Postmates driver <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/14/business/starbucks-hot-coffee-driver-verdict#:~:text=the%20US%20market-,Starbucks%20ordered%20to%20pay%20$50%20million%20to%20delivery%20driver%20burned,and%20onto%20Garcia%2C%20Parker%20said.">Michael Garcia</a>, who spilled hot Starbucks tea in his lap and will be best known by strangers for his “<a href="https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/starbucks-just-got-some-very-bad-news-its-a-timely-warning-for-every-other-company/91164537">penis injury</a>.” 
We also sue for the drugs we misuse. In 2022, Johnson &amp; Johnson and three major distributors finalized a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-opioids-camden-dec0982c4c40ad08b2b30b725471e000">$26 billion</a> settlement, set to be paid out to just about every state in the U.S. in light of the opioid crisis. In 2025, Purdue Pharma and its owners agreed on a <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/taking-action/ag-sunday-announces-historic-settlement-with-purdue-pharma-and-sackler-family-regarding-manufacture-distribution-of-opioids-that-fueled-addiction-epidemic/">$7.4 billion</a> settlement for their part in the drug epidemic that continues to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/about/understanding-the-opioid-overdose-epidemic.html#:~:text=The%20rise%20in%20opioid%20overdose,2">rage on</a>. 
But are these high-profile settlements doing anything other than temporarily stinging the pockets of megacorporations? Will people decide to do less drugs, be more careful with their coffee, and skip the Doritos if there’s a federally mandated warning label on the package? We were already eating bright orange, cheese-dusted corn chips. It’s not like we thought they were carrots. 
When one 2024 <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/latino-parents-support-policies-addressing-social-medias-impact-on-childrens-mental-health/">study</a> shared a warning about social media use before asking Latino parents if they were now likely to monitor or limit their kids’ time on the platforms, 76% of them said yes. By then, we’d all heard about the <a href="https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/social-media-risks-tips-to-keep-your-children-safe">dangers</a>. So what were those parents waiting for?
Sometimes, even severe warnings can have the opposite effect. When I stopped by a bistro in Seattle, forced to weave through a gaggle of duck-costumed PETA protestors holding gruesome posters, I asked the bartender if the anti-foie gras crowd outside affected business. “Every time they’re here, we sell a ton of foie gras,” he said. Zing. 
Mulling over the concept of phone addiction in the middle of the night, I came across a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2">study</a> showing that some adults assume we’re addicted to social media when we’re actually not. (Yes, I found it on my phone.) Overuse of social media is commonly called “addiction” without looking at the full range of symptoms. 
In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2">substance abuse</a>, that looks like “impaired control, craving and dependence, withdrawal when not using, conflict with other activities, and hazardous or risky use,” according to Scientific Reports. But some social media “addicts” described benefits, too: “Facebook users who self-reported greater life conflict and lack of control (two symptoms of addiction) also reported greater positive impacts of Facebook use.”  
There’s a difference between forming a <a href="https://relevancerecovery.com/habit-vs-addiction/">habit versus an addiction</a>. Addiction is always harmful, but habits are not. And calling yourself an addict when you’re engaging in a bad habit lessens your ability to change the behavior. It also increases <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2">self-blame</a>, which doesn’t help.
Like <a href="https://youtu.be/b1kbLwvqugk?list=RDb1kbLwvqugk&amp;t=48">Taylor Swift</a> sang in “Anti-Hero,” when it comes to getting lost in the doomscroll, “It&#8217;s me. Hi. I&#8217;m the problem, it&#8217;s me.” Maybe it’s time to bring personal responsibility back.
“Accountability is not a dirty word,” licensed professional counselor <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stress-fracture/202002/it-was-me-i-did-it-why-no-one-takes-accountability-anymore">Jamie Cannon</a> says. “By admitting to our own faults and mistakes, we jettison the victim role and take back the power to change.”
Social media addiction is not yet a formally recognized <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853225000215">disorder</a>. But the question remains as to whether a multimillion-dollar settlement lets irresponsible adult users off the hook. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatrys-think-tank/202501/coping-with-problematic-effects-of-social-media">Set time limits</a>, turn off notifications, and know your triggers. Praising the benefits of going phone-free with people you love, <a href="https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/anna-lembke">Stanford University</a> psychiatrist <a href="https://youtu.be/D34KyceGhPE?t=53">Dr. Anna Lembke</a> told the Huberman Lab podcast, “Our collective challenge, and it should be our mission, is to make sure that we are preserving and maintaining offline ways to connect.”

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Big Tech Made Social Media Addictive, But That’s Not The Whole Story