Does 3.5 million euros ‘pay’ for social media addiction?

A jury in California (United States) convicted at the end of last week the Meta (owner of Facebook e Instagram) and Google (owner of YouTube) to pay 3.5 million euros in compensation to a young woman who sued companies claiming that their social networks caused her “addiction” and problems of “anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia”. KGM, as it was identified, and its lawyers argued in court that situations like the scroll infinite, constant notifications and automatic video playback were designed to encourage the use of these platforms and keep users connected to the screen.

In response, Meta argued that the emotional problems stemmed from the family environment. YouTube confirmed that the plaintiff spent just over a minute a day on content that it considered addictive.

What is certain is that the jurors found that Meta and Google had been negligent by making applications available that eventually addicted young people and teenagers and did not warn them about the dangers they allegedly faced. And so, they decided to condemn the two technology companies. A sentence that worsened a complicated weekend for Meta, which a few hours earlier had been fined by a jury in New Mexico (USA) to pay 325 million euros because it was considered that it did not protect children from the risks of its platforms.

These two cases, regardless of their judicial importance and their impact on the future, put the influence of social networks and the use of cell phones back into public discussion.

In fact, the European Commissionat the beginning of February, had already reported that the design addictive TikTok rapes European Digital Services Law and does not adequately protect users.

Knowing that in Portugal, for example, young people spend, on average, at least three hours/day on the internet and that this has costs on their physical health (poor posture and sedentary lifestyle), mental health (depression, anxiety) and child development, perhaps these decisions from the North American courts could be a reinforcement of the warnings about the dangers of using social networks compulsively.