With Big Tech: The Addiction is the Point
Schools and parents are fighting back against social media platforms, but they should not expect Big Tech to change its ways.
The year was 1994. In what would become a seminal moment in the fight to curb tobacco use, seven chief executives from the powerful tobacco industry were called to Washington, D.C., to testify before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. During the hearing, each executive was asked under oath whether they believed nicotine—a naturally occurring compound in tobacco and a key ingredient in a wide range of tobacco products—was addictive.
“Yes or no: do you believe nicotine is not addictive?” asked then-Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon.
One by one, the executives went down the line, handing off the microphones, and testifying that they did not, in fact, believe that nicotine was addictive.
I was reminded of this hearing this week as I read a New York Times piece about a lawsuit filed by more than 1,400 school districts against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube. Collectively, those companies account for the vast majority of the time teenagers spend online. The lawsuit alleges that the companies caused harm to students by adopting tactics purposely designed to keep students engaged on the platforms, even when the companies knew such engagement would directly interfere with students’ education.
Internal company documents uncovered in the discovery process show the companies were well aware that their products would have negative effects on students. Here is a selection of what the documents show, according to the Times.
TikTok considered, but then chose against, turning off notifications during school hours. The reasons: it seemed difficult to accomplish and it would hurt their daily user metrics.
YouTube’s algorithm can divert students away from schoolwork. In one example, watching a video about linear equations led to a recommendation to watch an unrelated Will Ferrell comedy video. Thus, even if kids go to YouTube for a valid educational purpose, it’s easy for them to get derailed.
Snap actively tried to distract students from work, sending them prompts asking them to share about what they were doing in class, or photograph the contents of their backpacks.
To their credit, employees of the companies frequently raised concerns about the impacts their products might have on their customers’ learning. The responses from executives were generally apathetic. For instance, the Times notes that one TikTok employee objected to a feature in which users were prompted to post “within the next three minutes,” something that would almost certainly interrupt learning if the prompts were sent during the school day. Their manager was nonplussed.
“If we assume teens are going to do this anyway,” the manager responded, “we’d rather them be here on TikTok.”
The company removed the feature the following year.
It’s certainly not a novel idea to compare smartphone use to tobacco use. In both cases, there is little scientific dispute that the products—and particularly the excessive use of them—can have harmful effects on one’s mental and/or physical health. However, plenty of products can be harmful.
The reason Wyden’s question in that 1994 tobacco hearing stood the test of time is that people are particularly offended by the idea that a dangerous product might also be addictive. If a company markets a dangerous product, that’s one thing. But if a company markets a dangerous product and capitalizes on its addictiveness, the company is perceived to have crossed a line. It becomes unethical.
Yet, I want to focus on a different line being crossed. Rather than crossing a line from ethical to unethical behavior, I’d argue the line being crossed is one dividing the logic of love from the logic of the market.
The logic of the market indicates that one should have one exclusive aim: to make money. To be fair, many companies and business leaders curb that logic and act for altruistic reasons. However, nothing about the laws of the market demands that its participants act altruistically, and some would argue that diminishing profit in order to protect or improve the wellbeing of others is, in fact, bad.
The idea that a product is addictive—that is, that consumers cannot avoid wanting to purchase and repurchase the product—is not offensive to the logic of the market; it’s inherent to the logic of the market.
“But what if the product is harmful?” you might ask. Well, the logic of the market indicates that at some point people will become sufficiently fed up with or wary of the product and will stop buying it. If that does not happen, the logic of the market indicates that the product must simply not be harmful enough to cause its addicts to cease consumption of it.
The logic of love, however, approaches the situation very differently. When we act out of love, factors like profitability become moot. The profits of a social media company or a tobacco company have no value in a system of love; and therefore products that are harmful have no place there.
The Times article notes that many schools are revisiting the question of technology, not just in the sense of banning personal cell phones, but also in the broader sense. Many schools—including my own—are wondering whether technology has taken on an outsize role in the educational lives of students.
To be clear, no one is advocating that we eliminate technology from education. However, many school leaders are beginning to jettison the idea that technology automatically improves learning. Instead, they aim to be deliberate about separating the times and places where technology is helpful, such as when learning a new software will directly improve a student’s job prospects, from the times and places where it is not helpful, such as when students are reading material that requires deep focus. (In fact, the ability to focus deeply itself is a valuable job skill.)
The lawsuit by school districts against Big Tech marks an attempt to use market forces in the service of love. As the Times notes, tech companies have already settled with at least one school district. If that becomes a pattern, it could potentially have a significant impact on the companies’ bottom lines, which in turn might cause them to change their behavior. However, it is unlikely to cause them to reject the logic of the market. And the logic of the market is that consumption is good and more consumption is better. We cannot stop companies from wanting to make social media addictive, any more than we can stop nicotine from naturally occurring in tobacco. What we can do, however, is make our schools citadels of the logic of love. Most schools already do this. What that means is fighting to ensure all of a school’s decisions are based upon protecting the wellbeing of students and the improvement of society. Insofar as those goals align with market logic, all the better. But when the two value systems are at odds, schools must clearly pick a side.
It might be satisfying to line up Big Tech executives and ask them if their product is addictive. In fact, it’s already happened. And to be sure, we should hold technology companies to account when they harm children. However, we must also remember that “addicting” users is not a sneaky shortcut to achieving their goals; it’s a central facet of their goals. And it’s why those with other goals must remain ever vigilant.