"IG is a drug": Internal messages may doom Meta at social media addiction trial

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/tiktok-settles-hours-before-landmark-social-media-addiction-trial-starts/

by mikestew • 6 months ago

106 31 6 months ago

Bombthecat2• 6 months ago

Doubt that very very much

dietr1ch2• 6 months ago

I could doubt tobacco is a drug cause I don't need it and don't find it interesting, but if I look around beyond just myself it's hard to doubt.

micik• 6 months ago

Tobacco doesn’t consume time.

In an economy, time is an important asset. When people are scrolling, they are neither creating nor consuming (spending money), which makes them inert from the GDP standpoint. It’s an economic blackhole.

This is why the government needs to care. If it goes unchecked, it will bring the economy to its knees. No country in the world can afford to have a significant portion of its population burn their time and energy like that.

danielheath• 6 months ago

You doubt that it's a drug?

Or you doubt that internal messages describing IG as a drug are relevant to a lawsuit over social media addiction?

NoPicklez• 6 months ago

I think they might doubt that it will doom Meta

giancarlostoro5• 6 months ago

All social media is a drug, and I lump Discord in there as Social Media, especially if WhatsApp is social media for many outside of the US.

netsharc• 6 months ago

Somehow WhatsApp implemented Snapchat-esque stories, and also channels that broadcast such stories (e.g. I can subscribe to updates from FC Barcelona), because hey, Zuck probably thought "who needs shame, we're going to copy functionaliy in order to destroy the competition".

giancarlostoro5• 6 months ago

You mean my "away" autoresponse I set for MSN for an hour or wast it AIM? jokes aside, yeah they all copied it, look at YouTube too.

JuniperMesos3• 6 months ago

Discord doesn't fundamentally do anything that IRC didn't do, except work reliably on a smartphone. If that's a drug, then that seems pretty close to saying that any kind of online interaction with other human beings is a drug.

expedition32• 6 months ago

The notification spam on your phone is something that did not exist in the 2000s, no?

I remember that with the advent of smartphones suddenly all websites wanted to send status updates...

giancarlostoro5• 6 months ago

You havent met people who are terminally on Discord yet have you? I don't know that IRC had that level of addiction. People become insanely attached to 'servers' on Discord.

subscribed• 6 months ago

One thing that Discord reliably does is to lock me off the account and force me to go through _all_, complete verification hops (starting form the sms to my phone).

Nothing changes between my sessions, IP from the same ISP, same device, same times, not even new servers, just a normal, human pattern of use on the decent, old account.

Just discord being discord.

bloqs• 6 months ago

Irc had screensharing and group video chat i had no idea

falcor84• 6 months ago

Some are harder drugs than others. I'd say that HN is caffeine, discord and whatsapp are alcohol, and Instagram is meth.

giancarlostoro5• 6 months ago

I would lump Tik Tok as the direct IG competitor imho. It doesn't make sense because that was not its roots, but the way I see people use IG is the way I also see people use Tik Tok.

johnneville• 6 months ago

i agree that discord is social media but the absence of instagram's individually targeted algorithmic curation is an important distinction when it comes to being "drug"-like for me

giancarlostoro5• 6 months ago

This is a fair call out, though I agree and disagree to a point. Some people get really into specific communities, if banned they will spin up as many new accounts as they can get in just to be in again, its really weird to me, I just move on from communities I am no longer allowed in.

ares623• 6 months ago

Jury selection for this should be interesting.

deaux• 6 months ago

Why does Ars pretend that trials have any meaning in the US? Maybe if this lawsuit was taking place elsewhere, sure. Zuck will just follow in Bezos' footsteps, make a movie "Donald Jr", and that'll be it.

Of course I know why they pretend, because they too don't really care, and keeping up the facade is better for business.

mediumsmart• 6 months ago

I can’t get past the 225 partners that care about my privacy but I’m sure the commercial technical ass site has a point.

mdavid6262• 6 months ago

Seems like pouring few millions to cover damages will be enough. I don’t expect big changes.

themafia• 6 months ago

On a single trial? No. This does open the door to more strenuous legislation of the core products though.

mdavid6262• 6 months ago

Are you sure? It seems like to me, they just pay these people to shut up. And that's it then.

Seanambers• 6 months ago

everything is like that, reddit, X, fb, IG, tiktok.

user beware

"IG is a drug": Internal messages may doom Meta at social media addiction trial

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