If you are reading this, you may be a screenager. And the worst part? You might not even know it. Maybe you do. It’s likely, considering you probably have a phone, tablet or computer. If you are older than 19, I’m sorry. If you are under the age of 11, then you are an iPad kid. And guess what? Apparently, that is on purpose, as some apps are being sued for being flagged as purposefully addicting, according to ABC News.
This addiction is silent. It’s sitting down to look at something on your phone and looking back up an hour later; it’s scrolling through TikTok (or if you’re feeling adventurous, Instagram Reels) and never being satisfied with any tutorial, cute pet or stream clips that pop up in a vain attempt to entertain. But it holds on all the same.
A trial started earlier this month in Los Angeles, which is the case against Meta (Instagram) and Google (YouTube). The plaintiffs’ argument was that two of the apps purposefully made to addict children happen to be made by two of the richest corporations ever, according to ABC News. The article also talked about how the target audiences of their apps are kids, as if that is a shocking factor. I don’t think any person above the generous age of 30 is going to be interested in the obnoxious poser content I’m seeing littering YouTube these days. Where went the days of brightly-colored hair gamers and harmless pranks? More importantly, when did the overacting and VFX-littered green screens take over?
Still, on paper, it sounds ridiculous. What harm can these apps really do? They’re just apps, right? What I think is more ridiculous is that a 19-year-old girl going by the initials KGM sued these companies because they caused her mental health issues after using them from an early age. Is this what iPad kids are bound to become? Maybe parents should tolerate the screaming rather than dooming their kids’ mental health with the curse of the brainrot.
There is a fair argument on both sides of this if you are enough of an optimist, but to put it into perspective: If someone is hunting and they kill a bear, was it the hunter that killed them or the shotgun? Was it really the girls’ decision to keep using the apps excessively, or the apps themselves?
The biggest thing about this trial is the fact that there are so many others like it, but they are not as well-known to the world. Whatever happens in this trial could determine the outcome of so many others.
If anything needs to happen with these apps, it’s their limitations for those who could be affected by excessive use: A nightmare for parents who made the mistake of cursing their kids with tablets. Mostly for kids and even young adults, either these limitations can be enforced externally– by parents of the child or even by oneself by limiting the amount of time spent staring at a screen– or internally: An app feature that can limit your usage depending on your age. Annoying, but maybe necessary and possibly safer for kids to even be using the internet in the first place.
As long as it’s not enforced with artificial intelligence tools, I think it may be a useful solution if people keep getting addicted to new things.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
