The Legal Cases Against Social Media's Do No Harm

"Even if a person is in clear difficulty with their mental health and they have used social media a great deal, if their mental health condition was poor before the social media usage, then this somehow absolves the social media company from any responsibility. It is an argument long used by insurance companies attempting not to pay out to claimants; in this sense, it is nothing new."

"Even if they did present mental health problems before engaging in social media use, it may well be that social media made that individual's condition worse. To determine this would require longitudinal analysis of data concerning the individual's mental health, both pre- and post-social media use, which may or may not be available."

Legal cases against social media companies raise critical questions about their role in mental health deterioration. While debates focus on addictive design, a more fundamental issue concerns whether digital usage causes poor mental health. Facebook's legal defense argues pre-existing mental health conditions bear greater responsibility than social media use. This defense mirrors insurance company tactics but contains significant flaws. Even if individuals had prior mental health issues, social media may substantially worsen their conditions. Determining causation requires longitudinal data tracking mental health before and after social media use, which is often unavailable. Additionally, once conditions develop, they may become irreversible, making baseline-level arguments ineffective in establishing responsibility.

Read at Psychology Today