Will tech companies be held liable for teen social media addiction?

US legislators are in debate over holding tech companies responsible for the social media addiction of minors. — Unsplash

Jaimie Nguyen’s use of Instagram started harmlessly enough in the seventh grade. There were group chats to schedule meetings with her volleyball team. She had fun searching for silly, sports-related memes to share with friends.

But pretty quickly, Nguyen, now 16, began spending a large portion of her weekday evenings scrolling through Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. She sought validation from people liking her posts and became caught up in viewing the endless loop of photos and videos that popped into her feeds, based on her search history. Disturbingly, some posts made her think she could look better if she followed their advice on how to “get thinner” or develop rock-hard abs in two weeks.