There’s a trial underway in Los Angeles where the plaintiffs are attempting to hold social media companies liable for damages caused to children who used their services. We have written about this case numerous times on AddictionNews, but never quite like this before. Some of the salient issues are:

Section 230: Social media companies are shielded from liability for the content that appears on their platforms.

Addictive Design: Features such as notifications and continuous scroll destroy attention span and drive compulsive use of the apps.

Reimbursement for Costs: Hundreds of school districts are suing to recoup the costs they incurred due to student social media addiction, such as greater counseling expenses and more special needs classes.

The term “addiction machine” comes from the plaintiff’s attorney in the Los Angeles case, Mark Lanier. He could have trouble at the trial because of the word addiction and the doubt as to whether it really applies to social media.

Some interesting views on social media addiction include studies that show it does not impair people’s ability to function the way substance use disorders (SUDs) do. Detoxing from social media addiction does not generate the same intense physical pains caused by withdrawing from substances of abuse.

Testifying in front of a jury at the Los Angeles trial, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said he “disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms,” according to PBS News. Mosseri prefers the term “problematic usage,” defining it as “someone spending more time on Instagram than they feel good about, and that definitely happens.”

When asked if the plaintiff spending 16 hours a day on Instagram was “addiction,” Mosseri, who told the jury he is not an expert in addiction, would only call it “problematic use.”

Proving that social media is an “addiction machine” is difficult, but proving it’s a “displacement machine” is possible — and possibly profitable for plaintiffs.

Displacement is the result of an accumulation of stressful energy resulting from an imbalance between what you’d like to do and what you have to do. It’s the result of feeling trapped. That nervous energy is displaced into activities that trapped animals engage in: pacing, excessive grooming, overeating, etc.

When not trapped in a cage, this buildup of stressful energy can be displaced with sports, music, exercise, gardening, cooking, crafting, and other largely benign activities that can also become habit-forming. All of these activities can be used as substitutes to help break dependencies on more harmful substances or activities.

Displacement is like water, and the energy flows toward the nearest outlet at hand. Rather than healthy outlets, it can flow toward substances of abuse such as alcohol and opioids, and behaviors of abuse, such as compulsive gambling, pornography addiction, and eating addiction.

All of these behaviors and compulsions originate in a build-up of stressful energy that is caused by cues. Environmental cues raise the awareness of a potential dopamine reward, causing a surge in desire to engage in the behavior. It is the anticipation of consumption, the anticipation of winning, that itself becomes more irresistible than the ultimately disappointing release of tension through abuse.

Displacement might more easily explain the compulsion to use social media. The product is certainly designed to cause anxiety — enough anxiety that it must be constantly checked to see if it contains good or bad news.

The social media companies have most definitely programmed their services to encourage maximum time on the app. Unless users take a defensive stance toward social media from the start, it will attempt to become an indispensable part of life. Social media companies consider that smart marketing. Social media addiction litigators consider it a criminal conspiracy.

The link between social media addiction and displacement might more easily help plaintiff’s attorneys explain increases in anxiety and mental health problems, as well as increases in obesity, eating disorders, and gaming addiction.

Social media is a displacement machine. It’s as though an alcoholic had bottles that chimed every hour to remind him or her to drink, or someone with a gambling problem had a device constantly going, “Psst, take a look at these odds!” It’s designed to take the nervous energy in life we all feel and use it to fuel a dependency we would be better off without.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published February 19, 2026.

Sources:

“Instagram and YouTube owners built ‘addiction machines’, trial hears,” BBC, February 10, 2026.

“Instagram boss says 16 hours of daily use is ‘problematic’ not addiction,” BBC, February 11, 2026.

“Instagram chief says he does not believe people can get clinically addicted to social media,” PBS News, February 11, 2026.

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