Defendants include Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube parent Google.
Lily JamaliNorth America Technology correspondent, San Francisco
TikTok has reached a settlement to avoid it being involved in a landmark social media addiction trial - a matter of hours before jury selection was due to begin in California.
The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified by the initials KGM, alleges the design of platforms' algorithms left her addicted to social media and negatively affected her mental health.
"The parties are pleased to have reached an amicable resolution of this dispute," the Social Media Victims Law Center said of the TikTok settlement, adding the terms were confidential.
The defendants now include Meta - which owns Instagram and Facebook and YouTube parent Google. Snapchat settled with the plaintiff last week.
The named social media companies have said the plaintiff's evidence falls short of proving they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.
The case going to trial marks a distinct shift in how the US legal system treats tech firms, which face mounting claims that their products lead to addictive behaviours.
The companies have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress in 1996, exempts platforms from liability for what third parties post.
But at issue in this case are design choices about algorithms, notifications and other features that affect how people use their apps.
KGM's attorney, Matthew Bergman, told the BBC the case will be the first time a social media company has been held to account by a jury at trial.
"Unfortunately, there are all too many kids in the United States, the UK, and around the world who are suffering as KGM does because of the dangerous and addictive algorithms that the social media platforms foist on unsuspecting kids," he said.
"These companies are going to have to explain to a jury why their profits were more important than the lives of our young people."
Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, told the BBC that losing these cases in court could pose an existential threat to the social media companies.
But he said it may be difficult for plaintiffs to prove physical harms can be blamed on content publishers.
"The fact that the plaintiffs have been able to sell that idea has opened the door to a whole bunch of new legal questions that the law wasn't really designed to answer," he said.
At trial, jurors are expected to see an array of evidence, including excerpts from internal company documents.
"A lot of what these companies have been trying to shield from the public is likely going to be aired in court," said Mary Graw Leary, a law professor at Catholic University of America.
Meta says it has introduced dozens of tools to support a safer environment for teens online.
"We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people," it said in a statement.
Researchers have previously questioned the effectiveness of Meta's safety interventions - Meta argued the researchers had not properly understood how the tools it had introduced worked.
The companies are expected to argue any asserted harms are caused by third-party users.
One highly-anticipated witness the jury will hear from is Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, who is due to testify early in the trial.
In 2024, he told US senators "the existing body of scientific work has not shown any causal link between social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes".
During that same hearing, at the prodding of one senator, Zuckerberg apologised to victims and their loved ones who had crowded into the chamber.
Tech executives "are often not good under pressure" said Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at George Washington University.
She said the firms were "very much much hoping" they could avoid having top bosses testify.
The trial comes as the companies face growing scrutiny from families, school districts, and prosecutors worldwide.
Last year, dozens of US states sued Meta, alleging the company misled the public over risks of social media use and had contributed to a youth mental health crisis.
Australia has enacted a social media ban on under-16s, and the UK signalled in January it may follow.
"There is a tipping point when it comes to the harms of social media," Franks said.
"The tech industry has been given deferential treatment - I think we're seeing that start to change."
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Comments
Fundamentally, I think having a source of "free dopamine" on tap is not going to do any good. If I can get distracted from my real world tasks anytime, anywhere, the immediate incentives to work on real things disappear. Effectively, one can get stuck in a local minimum.
I don't know how to solve it, but personally I've chosen to block as many feeds/algorithms as I can, so I have to make a conscious decision to search for something (making it just as hard as making the conscious decision that I'm likely putting off). The only feeds I have right now are the FT and Hacker News. Everything else is just a blank home screen with a search bar.
But if things interest you, does that not also provide dopamine? If the interesting things are easily available, are they "free" and addictive and bad? If they're good because they're interesting, is TikTok not interesting to those who like it? If you had a pinball machine and it distracted you, would that be bad, or a hobby? Is TikTok more compelling than pinball because of the algorithm? Is the algorithm not merely providing things that will likely interest you? Is interest bad now?
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-284:553 reply these products are intentionally designed to be addictive by some of the greatest minds of our generation. If you were intentionally designing society this would be the opposite of what you'd do.
Our children are effectively enslaved through basic trinkets and manipulation to serve as eye-balls for ad impressions to fuel equity value in silicon valley. It's fucked and it was intentionally designed to be this fucked.
The abstract of what you state makes sense, but the layers of manipulation on top of it are what the problem is.
By nobodywillobsrv 2026-01-287:182 reply It's worth stating that addictive tech is addictive partly because it doesn't work very well.
So they build useful things and then make them pretty bad and less useful. If they were useful your interest or need would complete and you would move on.
Fundamentally I think it is important to say this. Addiction confounds some things in the space of designed systems
By 1718627440 2026-01-3021:22 It depends on what you define their use to be. If the point is to gain data from as much people as possible, they do work pretty well.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-287:211 reply Spot on. Like how Facebook used to be quite useful to stay in touch with friends, or how dating websites used to be kinda decent to find like-MINDED people but have now all been enshittified in order to keep people on them.
By thijson 2026-01-2815:38 I used to not mind my kids watching Youtube on the home TV, but lately when I walk by they are doom scrolling one short after the other. I tell them not to watch shorts, but a day later I walk by and they are back to doom scrolling. I'm finally forced to remove Youtube from the TV. On the phone, Instagram is the same way, I see my teenager doom scrolling it quite often. They claim it helps them relax.
By Simboo 2026-01-285:07 I agree.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-284:591 reply don't act coy. We did it.
Hooked - How to build habit forming products - Nir Eyal.
We did it intentionally.
While I read through snippets from that book, I'd like to know what substantive point to look for in it. There's a chapter about ethics apparently.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-285:291 reply Consider the Lean Startup methodology. The darker patterns are where you break down the big picture rationale for the company. You extract metrics that contribute to the company's success (i.e. engagement) and you build a machine that rewards changes to the underlying system that improves those metrics.
If done successfully, you create an unwitting sociopathy, a process that demands the product be as addictive as possible and a culture that is in thrall to the machine that rewards its employees by increasing those metrics. You're no longer thinking about purpose or wondering about what you're doing to your users. You simply realise that if you send this notification at this time, with this colour button, in this place, with this tagline then the machine likes it. Multiple people might contribute a tiny piece of a horrifying and manipulative whole and never quite realise the true horror of the monster they've helped build.
That horror being..? I understand that this is a ruthless quest for engagement by any means, good or bad. For instance ...?
I don't mean to make you do all the work here: I can see a couple of pages from the introduction which mention "variability" and "investment":
> What distinguishes the Hook Model from a plain vanilla feedback loop is the Hook’s ability to create a craving. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don’t create desire. The unsurprising response of your fridge light turning on when you open the door doesn’t drive you to keep opening it again and again. However, add some variability to the mix—suppose a different treat magically appears in your fridge every time you open it—and voila, intrigue is created.
So that's "variability". I'm not hugely impressed. "Investment", meanwhile, is when you set preferences or connect to friends, so you feel like you lose out if you stop attending. I can see that these might be foolish ideas. But I can also see that foolish ideas are part of "engaging" with anything - something traditionally wholesome such as a piano, for instance. Imagine I'm a Victorian lady, and I've bought a piano and I invite my friends over for a regular evening of singing art songs, so that's "investment": also we buy new song sheets every time, so there's "variety". I'm totally hooked on this harmless positive thing, am I? Or do I in fact just like it and have free will?
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-285:471 reply Are you being intentionally obstinate? I can't help but feel like you're sealioning.
An increasing number of young people get their news from social media and what is "engaging" isn't necessarily what's true. This leads to greater political polarisation, nuance is lost, tribalism increases, people treat conversations as things to be won as opposed to opportunities to share information. People spend their entire time doomscrolling because everything is "engaging" so it caters to their paranoia and attempts to keep them glued to their phone, ramping up their anxiety and paranoia because it makes them more money. People stay up late scrolling a feed that hooks them, sleep less, perform less well at work, may lose their job and all the ramifications that go along with that. Parents spend more time on their phones than with their children, a generation of babies and toddlers are having to compete for attention with these apps and in many cases fail because they're designed so well. What's worse is the babies get thrust an ipad and then are brought up by arbitrary strangers who may not have their best interests at heart and are exposed to considerable amounts of advertising at far too young an age.
I could go on but I feel like you're just going to give another one liner where you pretend that actually there's nothing wrong with this or smth.
Eh, sorry, edited some stuff in now. I'm not a sealion, honest, we just have different points of view where what is obvious to you (to the point of irrelevance?) is unsubstantiated and crucial from my perspective.
I'm going to acknowledge "anxiety and paranoia" as something that it's particularly unethical to pander to. But I feel like that deserves a name in its own right, separate from addiction. I'm having a tip-of-the-tongue moment about it.
- I guess that's (automated) fearmongering and hoaxing.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-286:451 reply I see your angle but I worry the "free will" premise sleep walks us into manipulation. People are vulnerable to the The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B Cialdini).
My perspective might be a bit nannying but I think we're arguing the nation-building vs individualism axis and the free-will vs regulation axis.
For example, smoking has some benefits, its a cheap stimulent, helps you focus, good for people with undiagnosed ADHD. However its highly addictive and causes terrible long term health issues, so where do we fall on the line of its regulation? Should we allow everyone to persue their "free will" and advertising to be unregulated? Tobacco companies have a perverse incentive to downplay and suppress the health costs, fabricate positive research and lobby governments. Last time we allowed that everyone smoked, that might be good for free will, but is that good for society, for nation building?
I'd make a similar argument for our addictive online services, I think they should probably be age gated and increasingly regulated. While they're beneficial for the US economy they're detrimental to the nation-building of all nations exposed to them.
I would ask you to consider how the internet would look if online advertising was banned. While its an unrealistic aim, I think that view is extremely informative to the idea of _actual_ free will. If you remember how the old internet looked, its clear how the profit motive has distorted the internet beyond recognition.
To throw up a more middle ground example based on a video I saw a couple of days ago: there's a popular "health food influencer" on tiktok who gives contradictory advice based on products he's promoting and their ingredients list. In January sugar is a terrible ingredient but in March its entirely fine. He's shilling via product placement and there's no regulation of his platform. If people lack critical thinking they just blindly buy these products and learn nothing about health. You might state they're exercising their free will, but is that genuinely true? Maybe he only obtained his traffic because he had no qualms about how manipulative his content was. Did he get his early numbers via botting and then ending up towards the top of the list? Perhaps he threw $20k at another popular influencer to spam mentions and that's how he got his early traffic. An entirely unregulated system permits this. If the money wasn't there the only people talking about health foods would be people genuinely interested who gave reliable advice. The profit motive creates this distortion because its profitable to be misleading and sensationalist. There is a nuanced conversation to be had around people being able to make money on the platform and dedicate a career to it and banning advertising doesn't allow that. Somewhere there's a middle ground, I'm not sure where that is but I don't think we're anywhere near it today.
If you want a genuinely dark example then look up subliminals [0]. Its a niche community of grifter adults and tragically sad children, where the children seem to be labouring under a bizarre misconception peddled by the grifters that by repeatedly watching a specially prepared video they can become taller or have a prettier nose.
Hey, that's a lot of assuming the conclusion. I meant that the piano-player has free will in the sense that she's not addicted. I don't want to argue for the right to use addictive drugs, I'm trying to establish whether TikTok is one.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-287:091 reply and the "health food influencer" and subliminals? They're similar setups. Online advertising creates a perverse incentive and this was formerly constrained by the gatekeeping of traditional print media, but the internet does away with that constraint by making publishing a free-for-all.
We're already in a future where "news entertainment" has replaced news and journalism is inherently unprofitable because it lacks the same attention grabbing properties of not caring for the truth. The new chapter in this is that "news entertainment" doesn't need on the ground journalism, and advertising rates pay better in the developing world. This means that all the facebook grandmas and grandads as well as the children are getting hooked on foreign-based indignance mills that are not regulated in the slightest. These foreign-based "news entertainment" shows only care for impressions, so simply re-enforce the desired ignorance of their audiences and tend towards pushing bigoted world views, in some cases even encouraging racism towards the very countries that are actually producing the content! In the very worst case scenarios foreign state actors use these channels in order to push their propaganda and stir up unrest in rival nation states.
It is free will, but in the big picture, its harmful to society.
Right, yeah. "Misleading", like you say. That health food guy's a shyster (like the snake oil salesmen of yore), and algorithms can sometimes send a feed into a shyster-like mode. So now we come down to terminology: addiction is the wrong word, deception is the right one. This isn't purely semantic, it's a different kind of hold over people. More cognitive.
Sidetrack: I had the idea recently that unscrupulous advertising might be a tragedy of the commons for the clients en masse, and harmful for the economy in general. Based on the intuition that lying can't be doing any good.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-288:051 reply > addiction is the wrong word
I used that word mostly because of the name of that book "Hooked".
> like the snake oil salesmen of yore
the problem is that you could run that guy out of town in the past and his damage was localised. Nowadays he can be the biggest player in town.
> Sidetrack: I had the idea recently that unscrupulous advertising might be a tragedy of the commons for the clients en masse, and harmful for the economy in general. Based on the intuition that lying can't be doing any good.
I'd go further and state that all advertising is bad, but I might be a touch too radical. Also it might be too late, given how strong "native advertising" and product placement now is. The content and the adverts have merged. LLMs might offer some brief respite as I think it will be hard to reliably advertise inside that content.
Defining advert is hard. Store signage saying "we sell things here" seems essential information. Standing in the street and yelling about bananas and peppers? What if I step that up and yell that I have red hot peppers for sale? People have to know what's available, and I have to be free to sincerely talk it up. Then it can get intrusive and insincere, but you can only police that at the extremes of intrusion and dishonesty.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-289:33 There's no need for insane abstraction, we're talking about motivation for negative effects. Silicon valley hooks our children into unproductive activity where they are often fed misinformation because they want to advertise to them. Entertainment News only wins because it brings in more money for adverts. Nobody cares about a sign in a street or someone yelling in the street.
The answer to this (if it exists) is to withdraw the motivations for spreading misinformation or find another means of tempering their impact.
Idk what the solution is, I just find it odd we make our society obviously worse in order for someone to sell some diet pills or smth.
Wow this is a bad take and a half.
Apply the argument to abusing drugs now, and see how this argument throws all nuance out the window.
Well, addictive drugs cause punishment to a quitting user by chemical means.
By the way, I'm interested in answers. I don't appreciate this being shot down as a bad take. Give me explanations, not disapproval.
By notpushkin 2026-01-285:531 reply There’s physical dependence and there’s psychological dependence. Most drugs can cause both, but hallucinogens in particular are usually thought to cause only psychological dependence. Whether that makes them less dangerous is debatable, but the fact is, they can still cause addiction if used carelessly.
Now to your main point... dopamine hits aren’t inherently good or bad. They can, however, also make things addictive, and drug abuse is indeed a good parallel here.
What do you think about pinball? Is it bad for us, should we sue?
By jesseduffield 2026-01-286:461 reply You can plot all activities on a spectrum of dopamine 'cheapness'. On one side of the spectrum is slot machines, various drugs, and doomscrolling. These generally involve little effort, and involve 'variable ratio reinforcement' which is where you get rewards at unpredictable intervals in such a way that you get addicted. Generally, after a long session of one of these activities, you feel like crap.
On the other side of the spectrum is more wholesome long-horizon activities like a challenging side project, career progression, or fitness goals. There's certainly an element of variable ratio reinforcement in all of these, but because the rewards are so much more tangible, and you get to exercise more of your agency, these activities generally feel quite meaningful on reflection.
Playing pinball is somewhere in the middle, probably on the cheaper side of the spectrum. Introspective people can generally reflect on a session and decide whether it was a good use of their time or not.
I really think that 'how do you feel after a long session of this' is a good measuring stick. Very few people will tell you that they feel good after a long session of social media scrolling or short-form content.
Another good measuring stick is 'do you want to want to be doing this?'. I want to want to go to the gym and gain 10kg of muscle. I do not want to want to spend hours on tiktok every day.
By notpushkin 2026-01-286:56 > Playing pinball is somewhere in the middle, probably on the cheaper side of the spectrum.
It could be a nice segue to tinkering with pinball machines though :)
By notpushkin 2026-01-286:511 reply If we look at the effects, no, I don’t think so. I see how pinball could be optimized for addictiveness, but I don’t see a lot of people devoting all their free time to it.
Now, it is more nuanced than that. Is addiction bad for us? And at what point do we say we’re addicted to something? For me personally, when I can’t stop doing something (say, watching YouTube instead of working on a project), I won’t be happy long-term. It would be more gratifying short-term, sure, but I’d say it’s still not good.
One question is, even if I unwisely stay up all night doing something (reading comics, say), how do we decide whether to blame the thing for tricking me, or whether it's my own responsibility? Another question is, do we even know our own minds and truly know when we're being unwise? I note that many binges that I would have beaten myself up over at the time were in retrospect great, and the worthy things I assumed I should have been doing instead were actually pointless. So this suggests to me that having an authority dictate to, e.g., comic publishers "you are tempting the public into unwise habits, desist" would be a bad thing because the authority doesn't actually know what's unwise much better than we do.
By notpushkin 2026-01-288:05 We can look at intent: comic publishers want to make them interesting and capture your attention for some time, but do they make them addictive? And we can also look at the scale – if a product is reliably addictive across a wide audience, it might be bad for society, not just for individuals. If both criteria are met, it’s probably reasonable to blame the “dealer” of the thing in question.
But I agree that we should be able to decide for ourselves what is good for us – delegating it to authority isn’t a great solution, it should always be our own responsibility. We should, however, be especially cautious when making decisions about things that are known to be addictive for others.
By secstate 2026-01-2813:33 Christ, this is like a textbook definition of sealioning. You've hijacked multiple threads here persistently asking for more and more evidence of their claims. If you don't agree with an argument, provide your own counter evidence. Stop harassing people and do your own work, or stop reading the threads with people you don't think have valid opinions or have no evidence.
At this point, I'd almost think you were a bot yourself, as your oblivious to the social standards of online forums and/or manipulating them intentionally.
By Liftyee 2026-01-2820:59 No, interest is not bad. I would say that excessive time dedicated to certain interests is bad, because it might lead to neglecting other interests that have real-world consequences. There are only 24 hours in a day, after all.
Which consequences are considered significant/desirable varies depending on the person.
I am using "bad" to refer to my personal judgments of this task ("was this time well spent?") and survival/growth needs in life. Inherently, there is nothing "bad" about scrolling: many things can be overconsumed to the point of causing consequences that are bad. However, the fact that TikTok et al. algorithms (and drugs, etc.) are designed to occupy your time and attention, makes me (by extension) consider them bad, because they likely lead me to bad consequences.
If I had a pinball machine in my room and it distracted me occasionally, I would probably write it off as a bit of relaxation/fun. If I scrolled a few TikTok videos, I might say the same. But if I spent multiple hours doing each while forgetting my fundamental needs (food, water, sunlight...) repeatedly, I may well say they are bad.
It's obviously unreasonable to classify everything that doesn't advance a certain goal (money? career? education?) as "bad", so the optimum must be somewhere in the middle.
(Rambling train of thought warning)
To resolve this, I have a few heuristics. They are definitely not logically watertight, but it's what works for me.
A key tradeoff is between "how fun is this?" and "what's the opportunity cost/consequence?"
Personally, I would like to live with purpose. The algorithms that drive TikTok etc. too easily lend themselves to purposeless consumption, which can also be true for many other activities (gaming!). I feel better saying/planning "I will do 1 hour of X", then doing that wholeheartedly - but I would never consciously choose to do an hour of scrolling.
Another bias of mine is that real-world things > virtual/digital/game/simulated etc... I feel like the inherent limitations and permanent consequences of physical things make me more careful about what I'm doing and what might result. If I break a part while tinkering/messing around in the workshop, I can't just load a quicksave - it gives me an opportunity to reconsider. Given that HN is a software-heavy place, I suspect many will not feel this way - this is OK, who am I to judge?
Long term compounding benefits > short term temporary pleasures. If I devoted my scrolling time (before I blocked everything) to playing pinball, or table tennis, or Minecraft, I would probably get very good at it. Similarly, if I tinkered with a pet project or filtered some photos, there would be some result to show for it - I would be improving my skill at something. As far as I can tell, the way I was scrolling TikTok-like feeds was not bringing any long-term results that I could look back at. Famously, no one remembers most of the short videos they scroll through. It only seems to deplete my
Granted, the previous paragraph depends on what one wants - perhaps influencers analysing successful video formats would improve their ability by scrolling. I'm imagining grouping outcomes into "good", "neutral" and "bad" for me: better at programming = good, top 1% Minecraft player = neutral, 100 hours spent on Reels = bad. (Reality is more nuanced, this is just a heuristic)
Speaking of too much time pursuing interests, it's time for me to close HN and get back to my problem sets. It is definitely interesting to think about this, but considering it for too long is bad in the sense that I will feel better having finished those questions.
This is what drugs and alcohol can become if not used in moderation.
Once we have the AI holodeck (the full-sensory interactive, possibly multiplayer one), can you only imagine?
TikTok is only the punch card phase of this. TikTok may as well be black and white television. Just imagine what we might have in twenty years.
Maybe this is why we haven't found alien life. If their biologies have attention mechanisms like ours, maybe they automate highs and turn inward instead of outward. (I do like that better than AGI gray goo taking over galaxies.)
Agreed, AI/VR definitely offers nightmarish opportunities.
At least drugs/alcohol are self limiting: you have to meet your dealer, go to a store, eventually run out of money...
TikTok/Reels/Shorts are free, infinite, and in your pocket on a device you're now forced to use in daily life (bank/2fa/messaging apps).
By echelon 2026-01-282:12 > a device you're now forced to use in daily life (bank/2fa/messaging apps).
Restaurants with only QR code menus.
"Let me scan your LinkedIn app."
Verify your government ID on our app.
"Zelle me."
"Scan this code to pay."
My favorite: "Scan this code for parking or you will be towed. Also, if you leave without paying, we'll tow you next time you enter any of our properties in any state because we scanned your license plate." There's no other way to pay.
Apartment / condo door keys and entry systems.
My battery is always at 10%. I don't know how y'all do it.
This is also one of the many reasons why I think it's criminal that two private businesses are allowed to own this modern life necessity so completely.
> If I can get distracted from my real world tasks anytime, anywhere, the immediate incentives to work on real things disappear. Effectively, one can get stuck in a local minimum.
> I don't know how to solve it, ...
> but personally I've chosen to block as many feeds/algorithms as I can, ...
I think you solved it :) (at least, for yourself)
There are many things "out there" that are addictive and distracting and thus unhealthy, but we all have to find some way to overcome
By Liftyee 2026-01-2819:53 Thanks for your positive response. It's true, we all need to help each other in finding community and human connection again amidst the waterfall of "content".
It's taken a few years to get to this point, but seeing the effects and regrets from over consumption of feeds made me take action.
I was reading a few weeks ago that it's more about easy dopamine rather than free that is so incredibly destructive.
Scrolling for hits of satisfying novelty is a proposition that will not be sustainably met.
Part of me also wonders if things like this can be used for not so great things, can they be used for good things?
By andai 2026-01-285:52 Story time! A couple years ago, I found myself with pretty severe ADHD and no way to get treatment for it. (There may have been a global healthcare cataclysm involved...)
I wanted to make some progress on a personal project, but I had a history of abandoning things, without external accountability. I had a guy for that the previous year, which worked great, but our interests diverged, so I had to find a way to do it on my own.
I realized that I couldn't force it. I had to find a way to make it work without having sufficient dopamine. Without relying on willpower at all.
So I stumbled into environmental design from first principles. I simply designed around all the failure modes.
1. I noticed that if I skipped a day of working on my project, the chance of completely losing momentum would rise enormously. So I decided I have to work every day, but to make it sustainable it only needs to be an hour.
2. I noticed that if I put work off until later in the day, the chance of skipping a day would rise enormously. So I decided that I had to start working as soon as I woke up. (But only for an hour. I could keep going but I didn't have to.)
3. And finally I noticed that, if I started playing with my phone or surfing the internet, the day was basically over. So I made a rule that I had to keep them both off for the first hour of the day. (And I turned them off the night before for good measure. That way I am waking up into the correct state by default.)
And what do you know. I didn't miss a day for 3 months. Even my dopamine starved brain was able to persist on this project every day without fail for several months straight, because I simply made these small changes to my environment!
The project suddenly became the most fun and interesting thing I could be doing. I actually looked forward to working on it the next day, when I went to sleep at night!
I just bought a flip phone and a cool pocket sized camera. I've gotten down to leaving my phone at home a fair amount, and leave my phone on a speaker that's not near anything I sit on when at home.
It's awesome, come on back out to reality. I frequently go out at this point, come back home and go to see if I have any messages and realize my phone was on me the whole time and I had no idea (I also silence pretty much everything...).
I'm super pumped to have an actual camera to play with that's pocket sized too since I did miss the camera. But now I'll have something tremendously superior and can leave that aging device filled with way too many 2FA codes I don't want to inadvertently lose at home.
You don't need to leave behind the conveniences of a smartphone to have a phone that is smart but without the dopamine traps. There are solutions out there like TechLockdown which allow you to make a dumbphone out of your smartphone using MDMs, while still keeping critical things like messenger apps, a predefined list of websites, navigation apps, etc.
By codyb 2026-01-2814:36 Yea, I know, but smart phones are getting bigger and bigger. I'd rather a much nicer camera, and a small dumb phone which texts and calls. As opposed to a smart phone with a much worse camera, that also texts and calls and does maps.
I can just ask people if I need directions. I'm already don't use location services on maps, and usually look things up before I leave anyways.
Just leaving the phone at home is really the nicest thing, and I'll probably continue doing that a fair amount as well.
What kinda phone do you have? I was nostalgic for getting an old nokia, but when I actually did, using it was surprisingly painful. I guess that's kind of the point?
I still need a proper mp3 player (been using an old android) and a camera though.
...and a Kindle, and a fax machine ;)
As a side note, the "old" style Nokias now seem to be running on some kind of emulation... The Nokia startup sound lagged and stuttered and made me die a little inside.
By codyb 2026-01-2814:34 Yea, when I'm on the move I rarely use more than texting and the camera. So I got a Nokia flip phone, and I'll see how it is. Worst comes to worst it'll be 90 bucks lost and I'll move back to something a bit more full featured. But really I chose for size, and to be able to text and make calls. It's possible I'll end up sticking with my mini for a while.
I also got a really nice pocket camera which I'm much more excited about. It's called a Ricoh, so the camera and the phone should fit in my pockets without any real trouble or bulge. Plus keys, and wallet, and I feel like I'm set.
By 1718627440 2026-01-3021:28 I do use an old Nokia and I find the UI to be surprisingly well designed a lot of time. For example keys are async, so you can already have opened the SMS editor, before the display has updated. Not that that display update would be that slow, we are talking about ~300ms. Also nearly everything is doable with very few keypresses, its really impressive.
I am quite curious, what was it exactly that you found painful.
Some people find themselves awake at 3am with twenty Wikipedia tabs open. Just sayin'.
By Liftyee 2026-01-2819:57 I've done that before (like many others), and occasionally still do. My current experience is that Wikipedia is decidedly finite (as far as content that is interesting enough for me to stick to, despite it being 3am). The slower pace and the conscious decision to choose what link I'll open next also regularly poke my "decision-making engine" to decide when to stop - no algorithmic feed of infinite scroll.
Of course, YMMV
By SunshineTheCat 2026-01-2721:3526 reply I 100% agree with the premise that TikTok is addictive and even dangerous to consume in large amounts (that's why I don't consume it at all).
But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers. Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?
Again, I get the danger here, and I don't like TikTok as a whole. I just don't really know where the line is between something that the parent is allowing kids to do (like spending a billion hours on TikTok), versus something they have no control over (like a company badly constructing a car seat, or similar).
> But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers.
The problem with analogies to things like cheeseburgers, gambling, drugs, cigarettes, etc., is:
1. Availability -- you have to go somewhere to acquire/participate in these things*
2. Cost -- you have to have money to spend. That is, it's not something you can consume/participate in for free -- you have to have money to spend.
* Gambling is theoretically freely available via gambling apps. But still comes at a cost.
With social media, anybody can do it for unlimited amounts of time, and for free. All you need is a phone/laptop/desktop with internet access -- which nearly every person on the planet has.
Addiction + Free + Widely available = Destruction
By Mordisquitos 2026-01-2722:173 reply To your points I would add the following difference between TikTok on the one hand and cheeseburgers, drugs, cigarettes, etc. on the other.
3. Targeting -- even under the (debatable) premise that they are intentionally designed to be addictive, cheeseburgers, drugs and cigarettes do not actively target each addict by optimising their properties to their individual addiction.
If I am addicted to smoking, the tobacco industry does indeed try to keep me hooked, among other things by offering me many flavours and alternatives. However, the cigarettes I personally consume are not constantly adjusting their formula, appearance and packet design specifically to satisfy my tastes and desires.
By johnnyanmac 2026-01-2722:302 reply Yes. Target the algorithms, not the method of delivery. Hacker news also counts as social media, but here we all are seeing the same feed on the same site with minimal (if not zero) tracking to try and extract info from the audience.
Even a first step of requiring transparency in the algorithms would quickly shatter this stronghold on people's minds.
By Mordisquitos 2026-01-2722:47 Indeed. In fact, you may notice I explicitly left out gambling from the list of 'non targeted' addictions. The reason for that is that the delivery methods for gambling cover the whole gamut from zero to fully personalised targeting, and I didn't want that to distract from the point.
By ares623 2026-01-280:25 Don't forget the most important part. Attempting to opt-out means social exclusion for a vast majority of the population.
case in point: lots of places have lots of restrictions (either through legislation or just industry norms, usually a combination of both) about advertising for alcohol or tobacco.
And those efforts seem effective to me, at least anecdotally. I don't feel particularly bad about those restrictions either.
By ares623 2026-01-280:22 nooo those restrictions aren't perfect. And if it's not perfect then it needs to be abolished! /s
By ajam1507 2026-01-284:21 Social media companies are also regulated, but we are talking about whether social media companies should be liable for creating addictive content when porn has the same qualities of being easily available and free.
By chromehearts 2026-01-287:131 reply Yes
By enemyz0r 2026-01-2812:27 agree
By sheikhnbake 2026-01-2721:37 I think the line is the same as vapes/cigarettes. It's less about the product itself and more how its advertised and marketed. Internal memos from Meta are pretty damning in that they know they're actively harming kids and not adjusting their product for harm reduction. I imagine TikTok has the same problem, prompting them to settle out early.
By conception 2026-01-280:271 reply To add, McDonalds is required to list calories and nutritional information. There are various agencies and regulations guarding us from them selling us rat meat instead of cow. Education on “junk food” is widespread and has (had…) widespread government education programs.
There is a great deal of information given to parents on what is in McDonalds.
I would say that most parents, not those on a tech site, have no idea how tiktok works, what studies have shown about it or its dangers.
By NoPicklez 2026-01-280:33 I agree, there's plenty of information out there and nutrition is often taught in schools.
Additionally, other content like TV and movies has content ratings, social media does not have anything of the sort.
By DavidPiper 2026-01-2722:20 You're getting some mild heat in sibling comments here. Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation goes into a lot of detail on this exact point about parental responsibility.
There are others that touch on personal vs. societal responsibility too and the difficulties with parental/personal moderation and change (Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke off the top of my head).
There is an enormous amount of nuance that goes into answering your questions and addressing your assumptions that HN is probably not a great medium for, if you're serious about understanding the answers.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-2723:311 reply > Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?
If McDonald’s is handing them out for free at the playground, yes.
I hate that this needs to be said, but giving kids free food is not illegal.
By xboxnolifes 2026-01-280:032 reply This requires many asterisks, as once you hit any appreciable size of "giving out food" you tend to hit tons of local ordinance about food safety, permits, and just general distrust of directly interacting with other people's kids at a playground (depending on the age we are talking about, but since we said playground, I'm assuming pretty young).
By direwolf20 2026-01-280:411 reply To add, little children have been arrested for having lemonade stands in the USA before.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-283:20 Source?
You don't need all the asterisks if you don't stretch the metaphor beyond its breaking point.
By xboxnolifes 2026-01-280:13 I'm not stretching it at all. The context was McDonalds, and the added context was giving food to children at a playground. I'm completely bounded on that context.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-283:19 > giving kids free food is not illegal
It’s not. But if you’re giving a kid “100” burgers “in one sitting” without the parent’s explicit sign-off, you are probably liable for damages.
If you believe that, go set up a "Free Candy!" stand at a local playground and see how long before the police show up.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-283:201 reply > go set up a "Free Candy!" stand at a local playground and see how long before the police show up
This is a sign of a broken community. Handing out candy is absolutely fine as long as the kids are old enough to understand their own allergies and limits.
But kids don't know their own allergies and limits, because they're kids. That's the point.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-284:261 reply > kids don't know their own allergies and limits, because they're kids. That's the point
Counterpoint: Halloween.
Most kids are competent enough to manage their survival in such circumstances. Some are not. And sometimes it’s not the parents’ fault. But if a community is raising a generation too imbecilic to choose if they can eat chocolate, their life path is sort of already written.
By obidee2 2026-01-287:22 Halloween happens once a year, that’s a big reason it’s tolerated. Also, many parents do provide guidance/control over how much and how fast the candy is eaten. Because otherwise everyone suffers.
The better comparison is what if there was a bottomless bucket of candy in your 10 year olds room all the time.
By direwolf20 2026-01-280:41 If the food contains heroin, it's illegal. There's a line somewhere.
By zeroonetwothree 2026-01-2721:382 reply The evidence doesn’t seem to support your claim that cheeseburgers are as addicting as social media.
Maybe if you had picked gambling or alcohol…
By SunshineTheCat 2026-01-2721:434 reply That has nothing to do with the point being made. The point was about to what level parents are responsible for things they allow their kids to do, regardless of how "addictive" it is. Particularly if they know it's harmful.
By criddell 2026-01-2722:02 Your kids are (and should be) doing all kinds of things you have no idea about. It’s part of becoming an adult. I’m sure you modeled all the right behaviors, and provided every advantage you could. That helps, but you’re influence is waning and their friends influence is building and it’s all manipulated by the thousands of PhD’s working for TikTok and the other social media companies. You’re outgunned.
By samrus 2026-01-2722:04 Regardless of how addictive it is? So the same argument applies to heroin? Shoukd heroin be legalized and allowed to be sold outside of schools?
I think you might be underestimating the level of control that an average parent, especially a working parent, has over a teenage kid. Short of taking away devices, it's tough, especially if they're going through a phase of doing precisely the opposite of what you recommend / demand.
I'm not saying that parents don't have any responsibility, but it's about practicalities. If a teenager can easily buy smokes or alcohol, many will, no matter what the parents say. If you make the goods harder to buy, usage drops. So, shops / software vendors do have some responsibility for societal outcomes.
In a libertarian utopia, anything goes, but kids are... weird in that they often try to push the boundaries of their autonomy without always knowing the risk, and it's in our collective best interest not to let them go too far.
> kids are... weird in that they often try to push the boundaries of their autonomy without always knowing the risk
I'd argue most adults are just oversized kids in a trenchcoat
By dijksterhuis 2026-01-2722:09 *all
By wasmainiac 2026-01-2722:03 If my kid gets addicted to fent I will get in shit, regardless that Purdue Pharma was found guilty. Point is Purdue Pharma is guilty for hooking people on an addicting substance.
By brailsafe 2026-01-2722:30 I have doubts most overconsumers of fast food are just getting burgers... like effectively nobody. Is it more likely that people damage themselves with cheeseburgers or the soda that comes with them?
I tried to eat as many cheeseburgers as I could in one sitting (I easily eat double the amount of food of others in one sitting normally), and tapped out at 10 or something, which is impractical and gross, there's a physical limit unless you have certain conditions
If you only go to fast food once a week or less with your kid as a treat, I feel like you could probably exclude soda and fries and tell them to get as many burgers as they want, but they have to eat them all, and it would be more of a lesson than anything lol
By lateforwork 2026-01-281:39 China imposes strong restrictions on the Chinese version of TikTok, see here:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-ti...
Excerpts: Douyin [Chinese version of TikTok] introduced in-app parental controls, banned underage users from appearing in livestreams, and released a “teenager mode” that only shows whitelisted content, much like YouTube Kids. In 2019, Douyin limited users in teenager mode to 40 minutes per day, accessible only between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Then, in 2021, it made the use of teenager mode mandatory for users under 14.
By AppleBananaPie 2026-01-2722:131 reply My personal vice is junk food. I wish they banned junk food. I'm not sure how the law would work but it would be objectively better for me as a human if they did.
(This is completely disregarding how practical such a ban would be)
By lotsofpulp 2026-01-2722:582 reply A power law formula tax based on sugar/sat fat/total carbs per mass of food/drink should do the trick.
Or give everyone cheap daily GLP-1 pills.
By AppleBananaPie 2026-01-2816:391 reply Sorry for the ignorance but does GLP-1 fix all the nutrition / hyper-processed components of the food or is the implication here someone's weight is (making up a number) 90% of the negative effects.
Thanks for the reply :)
By lotsofpulp 2026-01-2816:51 Overconsumption is the root cause of the negative effects.
By xboxnolifes 2026-01-280:06 Rest in piece literally every food in existence that isn't just a slab of meat.
By MrToadMan 2026-01-284:42 What if while you were eating a cheeseburger, McDonald’s was magically replenishing that burger so that no matter how much you kept eating there was still some left. Moreover you had little control over the ratios of fat and sugar used to replenish it and they earned more the longer you spent eating it. Would you consider them harming you if they were prioritising stuffing it with ingredients that maximised the amount you ate and ignored sensible limits on sugar and fat?
By toomuchtodo 2026-01-2721:47 The US has executed people in international waters over the claim of fentanyl being trafficked into the country. Is Insta and TikTok as addictive as fentanyl? If so, does it warrant a similar response? I think a cheeseburger is not an equivalent analogy. Singapore also executes drug traffickers, for what it’s worth.
https://www.techpolicy.press/is-tiktok-digital-fentanyl/
https://www.foxnews.com/media/tiktok-is-chinas-digital-fenta...
> Certainly, some regard social media generally as addictive, and reckon TikTok is a particularly potent format. Anna Lembke, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and author of the book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance In The Age of Abundance, referred to Tiktok as a "potent and addictive digital drug":
> I can’t speak to the surveillance piece mentioned in the article, but I can attest to the addictive nature of TikTok and other similar digital media. The human brain is wired to pay attention to novelty. One of the ways our brain gets us to pay attention to novel stimuli is by releasing dopamine, a reward neurotransmitter, in a part of the brain called the reward pathway. What TikTok does is combine a moving image, already highly reinforcing to the human brain, with the novelty of a very short video clip, to create a potent and addictive digital drug.
The thing I really liked about Tiktok originally was the departure from the perfectionism of Instagram, and people being ok with participating in the dance moves and trends. It was pretty positive. The thing is once you have an engaged audience sometimes you might want to keep them captivated (and their attention farmed to resell ads to).
With that being said, I don't know if McDonalds is not a really usable comparison.
McDonalds is not an endless conveyor belt of food arriving in your hands 24/7 and beeping and buzzing you when it's not to learning how and what to put in front of you to keep eating endlessly until you can't eat anymore.
There's more useful studies that doomscrolling and shorts literally decrease brain size, increase depression, and lead to dopamine exhaustion.
Short Video players are digital slot machines. They seem to be designed to let people keep using it who might not be aware on how to build up defences, or of defences are needed. In a casino many of the things the games machines can and can't do are legislated by law. It might be surprising to learn how many of those things out right, similar to it, or unique to it can happen on a phone without circumstance. Casinos will also remind you to gamble responsibly, and be able to ban yourself if needed.
The line is really simple for kids - screens loaded with bright colors that are constantly changing with many layers of sounds from ages 1-5 pretty harmful at overriding their senses. Then, there's other content traps from there. The recent moves to schools that go screen free (or greatly reduce passive consumption) is critical. Putting a chromebook in front of a kid for 8 hours isn't always progress.
By GBeastMode 2026-01-299:16 Casino laws protect the player, at least in reputable casinos, whereas short video players on your phone just pull you in with no safeguards, placing all the responsibility on the user
By clipsy 2026-01-2723:53 > Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?
Should you be able to sue a liquor store if they sell your kid a fifth of vodka?
By b00ty4breakfast 2026-01-2723:361 reply >Should I be able to sue McDonald's if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?
If RJ Reynolds was handing out free cigarettes to children, even though the parent either consented to this or simply didn't know about it, would you consider RJ Reynolds' responsible for the adverse effects of children smoking?
If it was legal to hand out cigarettes to children and the parents consented I don't see how the company could be held liable. The state should not be doing the job of parents, and the judicial branch should not being doing the job of the legislative branch.
That seems like circular logic.
You're saying parental responsibility should govern because TikTok is legal, while cigarettes require state intervention because they're illegal. But they are only illegal because we made them illegal (for minors). And isn't that exactly what is being discussed here?
For the sake of consistency, do you think cigarettes should be legal for minors if they have parental consent? If not, what is the distinction between TikTok and cigarettes that causes you to think the government should be involved in one but not the other?
By ajam1507 2026-01-2817:59 What I am saying is that if you want to regulate social media companies, pass a law, don't punish companies for breaking a law that isn't on the books.
The harm from cigarette use is direct, and there is no level of cigarette use that can be considered safe and healthy. Additionally, it would be very difficult for parents to prevent their children from buying them if they could walk into any convenience store and buy them. On the other side, social media use can be harmful, but it is possible to use social media in a healthy way.
I'm curious where it ends when you start banning kids from things that are only potentially addictive or harmful. Should parents be able to let their children watch TV, play video games, or have a phone or tablet?
What's the distinction between those things and social media for you?
By NoPicklez 2026-01-280:37 Food and nutritional science is something many of us know (to a degree) and has been taught often in high schools. That is partly why you know that cheeseburgers aren't great for you, because you know they're highly processed, high in salt and high in fat and that's written on the label.
But the knowledge of the harmful impacts of social media aren't as abundant, nor are they identified or classified.
McDonalds are required to list the nutritional information of what you're consuming. TV shows and movies have content ratings to know what you're going to be consuming. Social media like Tiktok does not have any form of rating to know what you're consuming or going to consume.
There is a lot of less rigour on short from content like Tiktok, in comparison with McDonalds.
By radicalethics 2026-01-2816:57 A drug is a drug is a drug is a drug.
America has never been able to successfully thwart drug proliferation. Porn, Video Games, Social Media, all substance-less drugs. It's up to you to keep your kid off Heroin and it's also up to you to keep them off those other things at addictive levels.
The thing is, keeping your kid away from things like Heroin takes a village (especially if Heroin is pervasive in the environment). The same is true for those other things. Adults have to enter the room at some point.
We've been needing a trillion-dollar class action lawsuit against social media companies. Long overdue.
By nunez 2026-01-2723:04 The difference between social media and cheeseburgers here is that I don't NEED to physically go to McDonald's to find out if a business is closed or learn more about their work. (The number of businesses that only post operational updates, specials or samples of their work on Instagram is staggering. Google Maps isn't trustworthy; websites DEFINITELY aren't trustworthy either.)
By biophysboy 2026-01-2723:221 reply > Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?
There are other options for addressing social problems besides lawsuits. Other rich places in this world are not nearly as fat as us. I suspect environments also matter for social media addiction. We should investigate why!
By direwolf20 2026-01-280:431 reply It's actually because they have more lawsuits and more severe lawsuits, leading companies to be afraid of breaking the law so they don't, and then lawsuits decrease.
Lawsuits are the one official mechanism for righting wrongs. They're the only mechanism that the perpetrator of a wrong can't just choose to ignore.
By biophysboy 2026-01-281:001 reply I would like to prevent wrongs as well as right them.
By direwolf20 2026-01-281:04 Suing companies early and often prevents other companies from doing the same things because they don't want to get sued.
By wasmainiac 2026-01-2721:591 reply > I just don't really know where the line
It is developed to be as addictive like a drug, but it’s not even fun. Just stupid mind numbing content.gambling does the same thing, and many jurisdictions have outlawed it for minors.
By thinkingtoilet 2026-01-2721:372 reply I'm trying to read this with the best of intentions, but you're saying you really can not tell the difference social media and a cheeseburger in terms of access, addiction, and damage?
By henryfjordan 2026-01-2722:093 reply Cheeseburgers are everywhere, are addictive to some, and eventually eating enough will kill you.
Put another way: If McDonalds sees I eat 5 cheeseburgers a day, at what point do they have to stop serving me for my own health? Do they need to step in at all?
If Facebook knows I'm scrolling 6 hours a day, at what point do they have to stop serving me?
By SchemaLoad 2026-01-2722:181 reply Cheeseburgers are not everywhere. I'm sitting at my desk, social media is here but cheeseburgers are not. Social media is always with me other than in the shower. Cheeseburgers are not.
By henryfjordan 2026-01-2722:342 reply I can get a cheeseburger delivered, or there's a dozen places within a 15 minute walk to get one. I can hardly leave the house without seeing an ad for one or some other fast food item on the side of a bus. I can't avoid being hungry, but I can leave my phone at home.
Sure it's a matter of degrees but I don't see a bright line between McDonald's and tiktok. Both want me hooked on their product. Both have harmful aspects. Both have customers they know are over-indulging. Why would only tiktok be liable for that?
By SchemaLoad 2026-01-2722:38 If I had to walk for 15 minutes or pay a hefty delivery fee to access social media, my usage would be massively lower. If there was a cheeseburger in my hand all day every day I would be a lot fatter.
By xboxnolifes 2026-01-280:10 If people never felt full from food, food was always instantly available in your pocket, and food costed no money to obtain, I believe McDonalds and TikTok would be very equivalent. Likely McDonalds would even be far worse since people would probably be dying to it daily.
That's the bright line. The lack of any barrier to entry.
By thinkingtoilet 2026-01-2722:11 A bar has a legal responsibility to stop serving people at some point, so this obligation is not unheard of.
By Mordisquitos 2026-01-2722:371 reply > Put another way: If McDonalds sees I eat 5 cheeseburgers a day, at what point do they have to stop serving me for my own health? Do they need to step in at all?
Is McDonald's adjusting the flavour and ingredients of each cheeseburger it serves you with the express purpose of encouraging you to order the next one as soon as possible?
By henryfjordan 2026-01-2722:482 reply They are constantly evolving the menu and it's entirely data-driven, so yes? It's not down to the person level like tiktok but if they could, it would be.
By mylies43 2026-01-2723:25 So compared to TikTok and algorithms the answer is no then? If they could I agree they would, but they can't target food on the same level that TikTok does.
By Mordisquitos 2026-01-2723:35 How is the cheeseburger that you receive differently tailored to your own addiction than the cheeseburger that the following customer will receive is to theirs?
By SunshineTheCat 2026-01-2721:394 reply Yes, of course I understand the addictive difference. The point I'm making is: does parental decision making have any bearing on this, or can they knowingly allow their child to do something harmful and then sue because it turned out poorly.
By thinkingtoilet 2026-01-2721:48 I think we would all agree that parents bear a lot of responsibility here. Also, if I think if we look at how we treat kids in other parts of society it's very clear it's a good thing when highly addictive things are kept away from them. It's a good thing cigarette companies can't advertise to children. It's a good thing serving children alcohol or allowing them to buy weed is illegal. And now that we have this new poison, the law hasn't quite caught up yet, but this is a poison, and it's being fed to children with a ferocity and sophistication that only modern technology can provide. A kid can't make a hamburger in their bedroom. They can sneak a phone in and use it. I think it's both. I shout from the roof tops to every parent who will listen to not buy their kid a smart phone. I also think we should hold companies accountable when the knowingly get children addicted to poison.
By afpx 2026-01-2722:07 How would you feel if some weird random strangers set up a free cookie hut outside the elementary school? Any kid can get as much free candy and cookies as they want as long as they go inside and don’t tell any adults.
By iamflimflam1 2026-01-2721:46 I would say if the companies providing the service do so knowing it is harmful and cover that up then yes they can sue.
By waterheater 2026-01-2722:05 > can they knowingly allow their child to do something harmful and then sue because it turned out poorly
That likely depends on how that "something" was publicly marketed to both parents and children based on the company's available information. Our laws historically regulate substances (and their delivery mechanisms) which may lead to addition or are very easy to misuse in a way which leads to permanent harm (see: virtually all mind-altering substances); even nicotine gum is age-restricted like tobacco products. Because nicotine is generally considered an addictive substance, it's regulated, but few reasonable people would argue that parents should be allowed to buy their children nicotine gum so their kids calm down.
Consider how, decades ago, the tobacco companies were implicated in suppressing research demonstrating that tobacco products are harmful to human health. The key here will be if ByteDance has done the same thing.
Also, to play off your point on cheeseburgers: remember the nutritional quality of one cheeseburger versus another will vary. If made with top-quality ingredients (minimally-processed ingredients, organic vegetables, grass-fed beef, etc.), a cheeseburger is actually quite nutritious. However, in a hypothetical situation where a fast-food chain was making false public claims about the composition of their cheeseburgers (e.g., lying about gluten-free buns or organic ingredient status), and someone is harmed as a consequence, the victim might have standing to sue the fast food chain.
> Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?
Should you be able to sue McDonald's if they delivered you unlimited cheeseburgers for free, said nothing of the dangers, and even encouraged you to eat more, and then you became obese/sick from it? Sure, it may have been your choice to accept/eat them, but you did so uninformed, and based on false premises, and the risks were hidden from you, or even explicitly downplayed.
That's what social media is. It's free delivery of unlimited cheeseburgers, but for your brain.
In the above example, you were tempted with something that seemed good, but that carried great risks, to generate business for another who knew of the risks, but either didn't tell you, or even lied to you. When the risks backfire on you -- the risks they knew about from the very start -- or even have already been backfiring on you for a while, I think it's absolutely fair to blame that business for knowingly tempting you into it, and that it's also absolutely fair to seek damages. Proving those damages is another matter, but I think it's absolutely fair to try.
By jmcgough 2026-01-282:05 Worse, people have a limit to how many cheeseburgers they can eat at once. You can spend all day on your phone.
By direwolf20 2026-01-280:401 reply Yes, you should be able to recover damages from McDonald's if they made their food addictive on purpose.
By NoPicklez 2026-01-281:40 I don't know if I agree with that.
I don't know how to draw even a blurred line between I've made my burger taste better because I added salt to it, but has now make it more addictive as a result.
You could argue an Oreo has been developed to taste good such that you want to eat them again.
I understand your point and I agree to an extent but I don't know how you do that. Becoming addicted to things comes with a level of personal accountability, to a degree.
By expedition32 2026-01-2721:42 Tech companies know exactly what they are doing. They deliberately sell crack to kids- some of the people who make money from it are here on HN so good luck with getting any honest discussion.
By sitzkrieg 2026-01-2723:23 it was sold so israel could have more control over the narratives visible. nothing to do with any real safety concerns
By popalchemist 2026-01-282:13 Cheeseburgers did not come about with the intent to poison. Social media is deliberately weaponized.
By GlacierFox 2026-01-2722:58 "Again, I get the danger here..."
Haha, wtf. You don't.
By noitpmeder 2026-01-2721:194 reply This case reads like a single individual suing these companies
What is to stop other individuals from filing the same suit and expecting similar outcomes?
It is a bellwether trial, a test of sorts combining hundreds of similar cases. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellwether_trial
By noitpmeder 2026-01-287:59 So wouldn't the fact that settlements are pouring in literally prove other can do it too?
By reenorap 2026-01-2721:20 This is the first of many lawsuits that was exactly the same.
By WarmWash 2026-01-2721:32 Not much.
Class action suites suffer immensely from bad actors freeloading on the backs of people actually harmed. I have a friend who practices law in the area on some pretty high profile medical cases, it's a chronic problem trying to weed out people who were affected from people who shamelessly want money. Basically people playing victim to steal from actual victims, and even worse, the side doing the weeding is the side who originated the harm.
By miltonlost 2026-01-2722:351 reply I hope nothing. Maybe if enough people rightfully sue, then these companies will be forced into going out of business since we can't put the executives away for the crimes.
By boca_honey 2026-01-2722:561 reply That sounds like an excellent outcome. Also, I don't think executives should go to jail for something like this. Commercial social media going out of business and their executives paying enourmous fines is the best that could happen for the world IMO, but it is also extremely unlikely.
By Revolution1120 2026-01-3013:40 They should be in jail, absolutely they should be in jail. They provided effective tools for powerful and influential Chinese elites, a mafia-like, Satanic cult group. And the gaming companies should also be in jail.
