Addiction
While driving home recently, I passed by a college campus. It was quiet, but a young man was walking across the road, and I slowed and watched as he strolled over the crosswalk, one hand in his pocket, the other cradling his phone. He had yellow earbuds showing beneath his neatly trimmed hair. He was oblivious to his surroundings. On some level, I'm sure he was aware of his general surroundings, but on another level he was somewhere else in time and space. He was in the Zone. As of March 2026, court proceedings have found Meta (Facebook and family) and YouTube (Google/Alphabet) liable for designing addictive features that fuel youth mental health crises. The addictive features named include behaviors highlighted in these pages before: Infinite Scroll: Allows for an endless supply of content, creating a seamless experience that makes it difficult to stop. Algorithmic Recommendations: Curated feeds designed to maximize engagement and "hook" users through personalized, ofte...