In 2021, 50 students in Tennessee were suspended for participating in the Who Want Smoke challenge, a social media trend where individuals pantomime holding a handgun. In the same year, the Devious Licks challenge encouraged students to destroy school property and post the damage on TikTok. In 2023, another viral trend, which promoted teens to fight in their school’s bathroom, left one student with a fractured skull. Yet another—the One Chip Challenge—claimed the life of a 14-year-old in Massachusetts late last year.

Social media, with all its trending dances, pranks, and life hacks, does not just cause physical injury to a few, it reinforces addictive behavior for all. Last year the Surgeon General issued an advisory on the negative impacts social media has on teenagers’ mental health, pointing to correlations between screen time and an increase rate of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, suicide ideation, and sleep disorders.

Despite growing evidence, the term “social media addiction” is still in its infancy, and it is not yet recognized nor treated the same as alcohol, nicotine, or gambling addictions. The prevalence of and addiction to social media is quickly outpacing the use of other addictive substances. Of all people who consume alcohol in the United States, only 1 in 10 suffer from alcohol abuse disorder. Likewise, only 12% of Americans are regular smokers, and a mere 1% have a gambling disorder. On the other hand, the majority of people in every demographic—including gender, race, age, income level, education, and political affiliation—use some form of social media, and nearly 50% of users have a mental health disorder.

To say this problem only affects teenagers attempting to go viral is both invalid and short-sighted. Social media apps are designed to be attractive to everyone, but in many ways, they mimic the brain’s response to addictive behavior, particularly the act of gambling.

They Create an Ideal Environment

Casinos were designed using psychology. For starters, there are no clocks or windows near slot machines or poker tables. The absence of daylight helps casinos distract gamblers for longer periods of time. Other design traits, like the no 90-degree turn rule, ergonomic chair design, and long restaurant hours, create an atmosphere that keeps the gambler firmly planted in front of their betting stations.

Social media platforms capitalize on these psychological tricks as well. Take for example, the autoplay feature, which begins videoplay automatically when a clip comes into full view on the user’s screen. Then, as the user scrolls and the video becomes partially obscured, the next video begins playing. Autoplay redirects the user’s focus to the lower half of one’s screen. This is important for several reasons. First, it pulls the user’s focus into the upcoming media, which entices them to see what is coming next. Secondly, it keeps the user’s eyes away from the time displayed at the top of their screen, preventing users from seeing just how long they have been doomscrolling.

But there is also a pronounced physical movement, or lack thereof, when people use social media. A user’s head is generally lowered, their shoulders are slouched, their wrist bent inward, all while their thumb lightly flicks upward. This bad posture for long periods of time can cause neck and shoulder pain—often referred to as tech neck. One might think this would be a motivator to decrease use of social media, however, studies show that bad posture can alter the muscle strength in the shoulders, which gives people the perception of comfort and reinforces those awkward positions. Tech neck and a sedentary lifestyle is also associated with lower amounts of adequate sleep, higher rates of obesity, and a decrease in respiratory function. And like all bad behaviors, the longer we subject ourselves to them, the more difficult they are to break.

Social Media is Highly Personalized

In 1976, slot machines began replacing the traditional lever with a simple button. But they also began connecting more with their intended audience by including a wide range of pop-culture references and interest-based formulas. Slot machines today depict game shows like Deal or No Deal and Wheel of Fortune, historical renditions like ancient Egypt and Roman gladiators, blockbuster movies and classic rock music—all in the name of connecting with potential users. The wider the range of pop culture inclusion, the greater the chance of resonating with potential users.

Now imagine a slot machine with a blank screen. Before a user places their first bet, they enter their personal data: favorite movies, hobbies, favorite sports’ teams, the college they attended, marital status, and so forth. Then, the slot machine comes to life, and offers its user a customized gambling experience, one that adapts with every bet they place. This description is essentially how social media works. As we fill out our profile, we reveal our guilty pleasures, the intimate details of our lives, then the algorithm exploits that data to keep us hooked on the app.

Consider the trending Hands In Challenge, where two people place their hands on top of one another and wait to see if their dog will do the same. There is no surprise this is trending. Nearly half of American families own a dog, so the likelihood of the challenge connecting with users is quite high. As viewers see the trend, they attempt to replicate it, and post their results with all the appropriate hashtags to garner as many views as possible. Trends like this entice participation, which contributes to more views, more likes, and a stronger connection to users.

It Reinforces a Reward Loop

The social media reward loop mimics the idea of B. F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning. Skinner put a mouse in a box with a lever, which if pressed, dispensed food pellets. The mouse, after learning the function of the lever, pressed it more frequently, thus reinforcing the positive outcome. Later studies found that if pressing the lever sometimes produced a slightly larger reward, the mouse pushed it even more frequently.

In gambling, small wins, even ones less than the original bet, still motivate the gambler to play again. These losses disguised as wins are called Return to Player or (RTP). For example, if a slot machine has an RTP of 97%, the house keeps three cents for every one dollar bet over the course of its use. The greater the RTP, the more hooked the player becomes. When gamblers win smaller payouts more often instead of higher payouts less often, the gambler is more likely to continue playing.

This reward loop—action, uncertainty, reveal—is not only present in gambling but also social media. The user pushes a button or slides their thumb (action). The icons on the screen scroll upward, and the user waits for an outcome (uncertainty). When the images stop, the user processes what they see (reveal), and they react accordingly.

Sensational clips give the user a small rush of excitement—one worthy of tapping the heart icon or sharing the media clip with friends—and the viewer is compelled to keep scrolling for another hit. Even when a user views content which doesn’t entice them, they continue scrolling, as they believe another ‘likeable’ clip will rise to the surface. Action. Uncertainty. Reveal. Repeat.

The Content Is Always Accessible

The more addictive a substance or action is, the more restrictive it becomes in our society. In 2019, the U.S. began more strictly enforcing tobacco products and changed the legal purchasing age from 18 to 21. Even after decades of expansion, casinos are still banned in half a dozen states. Sports betting too has seen an increase in popularity, but it is still illegal in some form in 20 states.

Social media is the exception. Its addictive algorithms are legal in every state to individuals 13 and up. While 39 states have banned TikTok on government or state-issued devices, this is only on the grounds that its parent company is owned by a foreign country, not because of its algorithms or its influence on our behavior.

Given this unobstructed accessibility, it’s no surprise 55% of adults and 73% of teens said they check social media as soon as they wake up. (Those percentages are eerily similar to smokers, of whom an estimated 63% light up within 30 minutes of waking.) Scrolling social media first thing in the morning has been linked to ‘priming the brain for distractions’ and introducing stress hormones that can negatively affect behavior later in the day.

A report published in 2023 found that over half of teenagers in the U.S. spend nearly five hours a day on social media platforms. For comparison, Las Vegas estimates the average gambler only spends three hours each day in its casinos, and smokers who go through a pack a day only spend two hours absorbed in the act each day.

Users Experience Addiction Withdrawal

Teens separated from social media have displayed symptoms not unlike those felt by alcoholics and gambling addicts during withdrawal: increased loneliness and boredom, nervous ticks and tremors, and higher levels of anxiety. Users also experience phantom calls and notifications, a sensation of mistaking a buzz or chime for a notification on one’s phone. These sounds then initiate a ludic loop, which triggers the act of returning to an action or substance again and again.

Companies who manufacture or promote addictive substances are regulated to do so in a conscientious manner. Commercials for lottery tickets have a disclaimer for 1-800-GAMBLER, the national hotline for gambling addiction. Beer commercials end their 30-second bit with the slogan “please drink responsibly.” Internet searches of the words “alcoholic” or “addiction” will provide links for SAMHSA and free-to-attend AA or NA meetings.

An internet search for “social media addiction”, however, only yields scholarly articles, blog posts like this one, or news sites that discuss the potential banning of TikTok. Parents and guardians though, have taken the matter into their own hands. People are filing lawsuits against social media companies en masse, citing instances of teen suicide, violence, and mental health disorders that are directly related to excessive use of social media.

But even with such progress, definitive change to our collective behavior seems out of reach. Smart phones are trendy, accessible, and universal. With an addictive program on such a novel device and access to its free content 24 hours a day, how could anyone not become hooked?