You're Wrong About Social Media Being Addictive

Plus: The Pentagon prepares for possible ground troops in Iran, a listener asks how libertarians should answer the appeal of collectivism, and ICE descends on airports.

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You're Wrong About Social Media Being Addictive

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This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch discuss the recent verdicts against Meta and the growing legal and cultural push to treat social media like a harmful, addictive product. Multiple juries decided that platforms such as Instagram and YouTube were negligently designed and that they contributed to mental health harms among young users, raising comparisons to Big Tobacco and intensifying the debate over which online activities are protected speech. The panel considers whether the real issue is design features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic feeds or simply content itself.

The panel then examines the latest developments in the Iran conflict, where the White House has suggested that the war may be nearing its end even as the Pentagon prepares plans that could include ground troops and the seizure of Iran's nuclear stockpile. They also take up a listener question about how libertarians can make the case for community and human connection without relying on government. Finally, they discuss the deployment of ICE agents to airports during the DHS shutdown. Are those agents helping ease delays, or are they making an already strained system worse?

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
https://reason.org/jobs/producer/

0:00–Is social media addictive?
25:29–Conflicting narratives on Iran war
38:40–Divisions on the right over Iran
41:54–Listener question on collectivism
49:06–ICE agents at airports
54:05–Weekly cultural recommendations

Mentioned in the podcast:

"A Jury Hit Meta With a $375 Million Verdict. The Open Internet May Pay the Price," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown
"#Addiction," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown
"Taylor Lorenz: Is Social Media Responsible for Bad Parenting?" by Nick Gillespie
"Hail to the Censor!" by Matt Welch
"More War," by Christian Britschgi
"Trump's 'Military Operation' Wordplay Can't Hide Iran War," by Joe Lancaster
"Trump's War in Iran Risks Ruining His Entire Foreign Policy," by Daniel Deptris
"How Will Congress Fund a $300 Billion War With Iran?" by Veronique de Rugy
"Trump Can't TACO His Way Out of Iran," by Matthew Petti
"The Iran War Has Already Hurt Oil Production More Than the '70s Energy Crisis Did," by Reem Ibrahim
"'What Are the Goals?' Some Republicans Questioning $200 Billion for Iran War," by Eric Boehm
"Sovereignty Is Such a Lonely Word," by Matt Welch
"Peace Is Hell," by Nick Gillespie
"Mamdani's Promise of the 'Warmth of Collectivism' Is a Lie. Just Ask All the Failed Communes," by John Stossel
"A Socialist Swearing In," by Christian Britschgi
"I Spent Over 3 Hours in a TSA Line. Why Haven't We Abolished This Agency?" by Billy Binion

What are we consuming this week?

Peter Suderman

• Atmosphæra Incognita, by Neal Stephenson

Nick Gillespie

• Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, created by Connor Hines

Matt Welch

• Anaconda

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• The National Cherry Blossom Festival

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Comments

[MWAocdoc]

First of all, there is almost no science behind "mental health issues" so they can't even begin to define "harm" in objective terms. Next, almost everyone in the world has at least one "mental health issue" so it would be virtually impossible with the current state of the art to identify any objective support for causation from any particular antecedent factor except "human being" - especially teenage human beings. There is near zero chance that any particular teenager can claim damages from a non-existent cause anywhere near the million dollar range. The juries in these cases are full of crap and the only relevant factor here is "deep pockets."

[Rick James]

Harm lawsuits have been devastating various industries for decades, why would we think Silicon Valley with all their emojis and Stache apps would be immune?

This is where I'm going to get all Reason on everyone's ass.

*clears throat* The problem isn't whether or not this or that app did any real measurable damage, the real problem is our civil legal system and how it encourages these types of lawsuits...

How'd I do?

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Needs more polling numbers.

[MWAocdoc]

Agreed. The first step might be for all judges to dismiss with prejudice all suits on their face alleging vague damages from non-objective causes. They already have this authority, it's simply a matter of exercising it. It's way too easy for judges to avoid skull sweat and kick the can down the street from a superficial reading of the allegation page. Another angle, not as easy to explain, would be to dismiss all torts alleging damages from protected "speech" - if the allegations do not include a clear explanation of how all the legal points of libel, defamation or slander can be substantiated, kick the lawyer OUT of your court.

[Vernon Depner]

As I've said here before, the civil justice system is by far the greatest threat to liberty in the US—far greater than the criminal justice system. The constant threat of specious lawsuits leaves us ruled by lawyers and insurance companies.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

Ctrl+F "Mike Maznik" = 0

Do better.

[minus the clever name]

Every cause has infinite effects and any effect has infinite causes.
As in philosophy so in law , it's all about where in the causal chain you stop...bad parents, bad neighborhood, crummy school, lousy friends
Give parents control of schools and school money....boost marriage between a man and a woman....stop aborting the future.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

a listener question about how libertarians can make the case for community and human connection without relying on government.

Almost by definition, community and human connection are what people do, on their own. Once government gets involved, it's coercion, not community.

[Square = Circle]

Once government gets involved, it's coercion, not community.

^

I would turn the question on the querant to account for how government does anything but shatter communities and sever human connections while offering glossy lies to "replace" them.

I'm reminded of the Soviet suppression of labor unions - "hey, we're you're labor union now, so we're going to need to destroy that unauthorized union you've formed and force you back into the factories at gunpoint."

[minus the clever name]

I go with Mary Parker Follett, who answered this maybe 100+ years ago
"The divorce of our so-called spiritual life from our daily activities is a fatal dualism."
"The best leader does not ask people to serve him, but the common end."

We do not need to swing forever between the individual and the group. We must devise some method of using both at the same time. Our present method is right so far as it is based on individuals, but we have not yet found the true individual. The groups are the indispensable means for the discovery of self by each man. The individual finds himself in a group; he has no power alone or in a crowd. One group creates me, another group brings into appearance the multiple sides of me.

===> KEY : No one can give us democracy, we must learn democracy. [ so we need CIVICS in schools ]

[Longtobefree]

"ICE descends on airports."

Those BRUTES!
Shorting lines, passing out water, and saving the life of at least one kid.
Damn fascists!

Descend my ass!

[Fu Manchu]

For the most part they're standing around and getting paid. Which is good use of taxpayer $.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

So, doing what TSA does already then.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

That's a long way from killing people as some morons claimed.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Are those agents helping ease delays, or are they making an already strained system worse?

Lines are shorter now. So better, not worse.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

ICE is helping. Reason is working retardedly at making things worse.

[Longtobefree]

"You're Wrong About Social Media Being Addictive"

And you're wrong about us giving a damn.

[JFree]

Those companies don't spend a shit ton of money creating/designing platforms in order to leave the manipulation of behavior to chance. They don't give a shit about content. Content is merely what allows them to take your eyeball time without you really realizing it.

Fact: We know a lot about the animal brain - and THAT is the part (not the frontal lobe) that we have been able to manipulate for well over a century now. In the exact same way, we can create stampedes in herd animals, etc. Now in humans because we can now get beyond the frontal lobe.

Fact: The more we know about the brain, the more certain it is that sociopaths/psychopaths are going to be drawn to the algorithms/etc that manipulate others - and the less the others who don't know what's happening will be able to resist the manipulation.

Fact: Once someone has been manipulated, they are no longer able to even understand what is happening. Their frontal lobe can no longer process information independently as if it is new because they have already reacted to that info in a different part of their brain. See Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity

Fact: Libertarians will, as usual, be useless because libertarian notions require that a)free will exists, b)in the individual, c)there is no such thing as a 'group', and d)there is certainly no such notion that humans are also animals.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

I don’t use Facebook or X.
I don’t care if another people do.

[minus the clever name]

But that only means you don't make the connection between people like the killer of Charlie Kirk and the Facebook that made him think his trans lover was a decent human being.

[Square = Circle]

Now in humans because we can now get beyond the frontal lobe.

The 1950s called - it wants its brainwashing hysteria back.

[JFree]

As I said above -- the more we understand about how our brain can be manipulated, the more it is sociopaths who will drive that and the less YOU will understand what just happened to you.

I'm sure you think the North Koreans are still at the leading edge of brainwashing. When just ONE of the things that has occurred - to you - since then - is that massive amounts of meta-data about you can now be segmented and reinforced for your specific vulnerabilities and motivations and fears. Your limbic system only needs intermittent 'nudging' in order to drive you - and that is exactly what algorithms attempt to do. And the result is that they create entirely different worlds of reality so that people can no longer talk to anyone outside their bubble.

Without a stay in a North Korean prison and obvious torture/coercion while you yell FREEDOM!!!.

[Square = Circle]

Let me ask you this - do you see yourself as also just a puppet being manipulated by the scheming masterminds behind algorithms, or is there something about you that makes you uniquely able to wiggle free of this unstoppable mind-control that everyone else succumbs to?

[Agammamon]

>You're Wrong About Social Media Being Addictive

You spend all day on social media, fight people on social media, write stories based on what someone said on social media - but sure, it's not addictive.

It's just the center of you life.

[Rick James]

I came here to say, "Hey, ENB, put down Bluesky for 24 hours and then hold out your hand so we can see if it's trembling or not" and then I thought... meh, not worth it.

[mad.casual]

ENB and Taylor Lorenz hanging out on Bluesky complaining about how all the guys keep trying to roofie their drinks... and they can't get enough.

[MWAocdoc]

Somehow words like "addiction" morph over time into ridiculous caricatures of their former selves. Almost anything pleasurable can be overdone by some people. Things that come immediately to mind that I have heard people call addictive include: running, opiates, alcohol, sugar, caffeine, sex, gambling, power, television, internet, gaming, comic books, pinball, porn, cocaine, amphetamines, shoplifting and huffing. Only a few of those are physically addicting, defined by tolerance and physiologic withdrawal signs.

[MWAocdoc]

Forgot to mention "rock and roll" listed in another article elsewhere.

[TJJ2000]

That day the 'Universal' Healthcare gov-gang killed the 1A...

[Vernon Depner]

The only libertarian take here is "abolish the TSA".

[Sequel]

The jury's finding the website "addictive" is absurd. The word has only figurative meaning in this case, making it equivalent to "heretical".

[minus the clever name]

But logically even if it were, it isn't instantly addictive so the contribution of the user is enormous. This is why early drug offenses should be treated harshly. All this marijuana and vaping sht is rehearsal for another Nazi times.
" When individuals suffering from pre-existing medical conditions use marijuana in an attempt to alleviate their symptoms, ultimately this worsens their conditions over time. "

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

Social Media is designed to be addictive, so is television.

[minus the clever name]

No, it is designed to sell. Addiction would be the last thing they would want. They want you to BUY something. I realized this from listening to user-supported radio, such a huge difference. Now that is addictive: No lousy news, constant pointless overstated weather reports, commercial after commercial.

[LIBtranslator]

Listener question: great podcast, but I am worried. This business of it no longer being cool in a videogame to rip the opponent's head off and... well... you know... follow up on that. Does this mean Duke Nukem is banned?