Last week’s landmark US court ruling may prove to be a turning point in our relationship with the digital world. In a case already being described as a “big tobacco moment” for tech giants, jurors found that Meta, owner of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, which owns Youtube, had intentionally built addictive platforms that had damaged a young woman’s mental health.
The claimant, a 20-year-old woman referred to in court as Kaley, sued Meta and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media. In the bellwether case, judges ordered the tech companies to pay Kaley $6m (£4.5m) in damages, setting a precedent for thousands of similar cases against social media companies that are waiting elsewhere.
The verdict hits home for many of us because the behaviours described feel so familiar: the endless scroll that keeps us up later than intended at night, the instinctive reach for a phone in any spare moment, the sense of being sucked into a digital distraction machine. They’re not simply bad habits or a lack of willpower; they’re the predictable outcomes of platforms designed to hold our attention for as long as possible.
Tech companies have consistently framed social media as a neutral tool. In this case, Meta argued that any harm was “the result of a complex mix of factors”, with outcomes depending on “individual behaviour, parenting, or wider social factors — not just platform design,” according to The Guardian. Judges disagreed and their ruling challenges that idea head on, suggesting that the design itself plays a direct role in shaping our behaviour, particularly for younger users.
Whilst the tech firms involved are appealing the decision, a broader cultural shift is already under way, with a growing number of countries looking to follow Australia’s lead by banning social media for under-16s.
All of which raises an obvious question: if the apps are designed to keep us hooked, how can we begin to take back control?
Here are seven simple ways to reclaim your attention:
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