\n<\/p>\n
This article is part of <\/span><\/i>Upstream,<\/span><\/i><\/a> The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n When news broke about <\/span>Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube<\/span><\/a> forking over $3 million to a 19-year-old user caught in the spider\u2019s web, my first thought was something like, \u201cYeah! Screw Mark Zuckerberg!\u201d A tech giant takedown warms the heart.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My second thought was, \u201cWait, so can we all sue Facebook now?\u201d What about \u201cKeeping Up With The Kardashians,\u201d espresso martinis, Ben & Jerry\u2019s, Reddit comment sections, IKEA, pressure washing videos, Chick-fil-A, Roblox, weed gummies, March Madness, and Amazon Prime? There are countless other things we can\u2019t quit.<\/span><\/p>\n With roughly <\/span>10,000<\/span><\/a> other cases in the works against social media at large, it\u2019s game on in the courts. \u201cWe\u2019re figuring out that there is a causal connection between cancer and cigarettes,\u201d tech journalist <\/span>Jacob Ward<\/span><\/a> told CNN, likening the moment to the <\/span>Big Tobacco<\/span><\/a> settlement of the \u201990s. \u201cWe\u2019re at the beginning of an absolutely new era in thinking about how social media is really working on kids.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Using this analogy, despite raging against the machine, all the kids are still holding full packs of \u201ccigarettes\u201d and \u201cchain smoking.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A <\/span>Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/a> headline read: \u201cLandmark L.A. jury verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids.\u201d Oh really? Was it the <\/span>infinite scroll<\/span><\/a>, autoplay, <\/span>polls<\/span><\/a>, quizzes, reels, algorithms, notifications, FOMO, or <\/span>dopamine dumps<\/span><\/a> that gave it away? <\/span>Maybe it\u2019s a little confusing since most of us describe our social media feeds as \u201caddictive,\u201d while social media calls this business model \u201c<\/span>engaging<\/span><\/a>.\u201d Tomato, to-<\/span>mah-<\/span><\/i>to.<\/span><\/p>\n It all made me wonder when the responsibility for making good decisions floated off of our own shoulders and onto the desk of Deborah in HR. This is America. We\u2019re free to like what we like and do what we want, and then sue the crap out of the companies that give us what we desire.<\/span><\/p>\n Has anyone ever sued Doritos for being too delicious? Yes. In 2025, <\/span>San Francisco<\/span><\/a> went after a bunch of snack companies, including Doritos\u2019 parent PepsiCo, for \u201ccheap, colorful, flavorful, and addictive\u201d products, like they were looking directly at a bag of <\/span>Doritos Dinamita Flamin\u2019 Hot Queso<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Bringing a lawsuit against hot coffee before it was cool, <\/span>79-year-old Stella Liebeck<\/span><\/a> famously won $3 million in damages from <\/span>McDonald\u2019s in 1992<\/span><\/a> after she spilled coffee in her lap, giving herself third-degree burns. It sounds terrible. But McDonald\u2019s didn\u2019t pour hot coffee on Stella; Stella did, while holding it between her legs to add cream and sugar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Three years later, the bit appeared on \u201c<\/span>Seinfeld<\/span><\/a>\u201d when Kramer scalded his groin with hot coffee in a movie theater. \u201cWe got a chance?\u201d Kramer asks his defense attorney, Jackie Chiles. \u201cYou get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you\u2019re gonna walk out of there a rich man,\u201d says Chiles.<\/span><\/p>\n The scalding liquid lawsuits kept coming. There was the <\/span>$100,000 Starbucks payout in 2017<\/span><\/a> after Joanne Mogavero spilled hot coffee on herself. And a high-profile settlement in 2025 paid out <\/span>$50 million<\/span><\/a> to 25-year-old Postmates driver <\/span>Michael Garcia<\/span><\/a>, who spilled hot Starbucks tea in his lap and will be best known by strangers for his \u201c<\/span>penis injury<\/span><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We also sue for the drugs we misuse. In 2022, Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors finalized a <\/span>$26 billion<\/span><\/a> settlement, set to be paid out to just about every state in the U.S. in light of the opioid crisis. In 2025, Purdue Pharma and its owners agreed on a <\/span>$7.4 billion<\/span><\/a> settlement for their part in the drug epidemic that continues to <\/span>rage on<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But are these high-profile settlements doing anything other than temporarily stinging the pockets of megacorporations? Will people decide to do less drugs, be more careful with their coffee, and skip the Doritos if there\u2019s a federally mandated warning label on the package? We were already eating bright orange, cheese-dusted corn chips. It\u2019s not like we thought they were carrots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When one 2024 <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> shared a warning about social media use before asking Latino parents if they were now likely to monitor or limit their kids\u2019 time on the platforms, 76% of them said yes. By then, we\u2019d all heard about the <\/span>dangers<\/span><\/a>. So what were those parents waiting for?<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes, even severe warnings can have the opposite effect. When I stopped by a bistro in Seattle, forced to weave through a gaggle of duck-costumed PETA protestors holding gruesome posters, I asked the bartender if the anti-foie gras crowd outside affected business. \u201cEvery time they\u2019re here, we sell a ton of foie gras,\u201d he said. Zing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mulling over the concept of phone addiction in the middle of the night, I came across a <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> showing that some adults assume we\u2019re addicted to social media when we\u2019re actually not. (Yes, I found it on my phone.) <\/span>Overuse of social media is commonly called \u201caddiction\u201d without looking at the full range of symptoms. <\/span><\/p>\n In <\/span>substance abuse<\/span><\/a>, that looks like \u201cimpaired control, craving and dependence, withdrawal when not using, conflict with other activities, and hazardous or risky use,\u201d according to Scientific Reports. But some social media \u201caddicts\u201d described benefits, too: \u201cFacebook users who self-reported greater life conflict and lack of control (two symptoms of addiction) also reported greater positive impacts of Facebook use.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a difference between forming a <\/span>habit versus an addiction<\/span><\/a>. Addiction is always harmful, but habits are not. And calling yourself an addict when you\u2019re engaging in a bad habit lessens your ability to change the behavior. It also increases <\/span>self-blame<\/span><\/a>, which doesn\u2019t help.<\/span><\/p>\n Like <\/span>Taylor Swift<\/span><\/a> sang in \u201cAnti-Hero,\u201d when it comes to getting lost in the doomscroll, \u201cIt\u2019s me. Hi. I\u2019m the problem, it\u2019s me.\u201d Maybe it\u2019s time to bring personal responsibility back.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAccountability is not a dirty word,\u201d licensed professional counselor <\/span>Jamie Cannon<\/span><\/a> says. \u201cBy admitting to our own faults and mistakes, we jettison the victim role and take back the power to change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Social media addiction is not yet a formally recognized <\/span>disorder<\/span><\/a>. But the question remains as to whether a multimillion-dollar settlement lets irresponsible adult users off the hook. <\/span>Set time limits<\/span><\/a>, turn off notifications, and know your triggers. <\/span>Praising the benefits of going phone-free with people you love, <\/span>Stanford University<\/span><\/a> psychiatrist <\/span>Dr. Anna Lembke<\/span><\/a> told the Huberman Lab podcast, \u201cOur collective challenge, and it should be our mission, is to make sure that we are preserving and maintaining offline ways to connect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n