Addiction by Design:
Why Big Tech Must Finally Listen to Young Users

Last week, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for intentionally building addictive social media platforms that harmed a young user’s mental health, awarding $6 million in damages and deciding the companies acted with malice.

A day earlier, a separate jury in New Mexico found Meta responsible for endangering children on its platforms.

What the courts are now affirming, young people have been telling Global Child Forum directly through our ListenUp! company initiative.

A recent report produced as part of this, ListenUp: What Teenagers Want Tech to Hear, revealed what 93 teenagers from eight countries felt they need from technology and telecommunications products and services, including social media platforms – and the companies that develop and supply them.

Their message was not that these platforms should be removed altogether, but that improvements must be made, based on the requirements of teenagers as a key user group — which is often overlooked or not consulted in any capacity.

“Young people do not want platforms to disappear; they want them to work better,” suggested one teen during the study.

Damaging self-worth

Teenagers also recognised and described addictive design patterns.

Endless feeds, autoplay, and habitual scrolling cause them to experience “a loss of control, time slipping away, and frustration with oneself.”

Participants also raised the issue of algorithms pushing idealised body images and lifestyles that potentially damage their sense of self-worth.

Moreover, the young people involved in the study were clear about what they want instead: connection, creativity, learning and autonomy — all without the harm.

As another teen put it: “I want to figure out who I am, not what I’m told to be.”

A watershed moment

This verdict, alongside growing legislative momentum  — with the banning of social media under discussion or already underway in Australia, the UK, Austria and beyond — signals that the industry has reached a critical turning point.

At Global Child Forum we believe the most meaningful change will come through genuine collaboration between young people (who must be acknowledged and consulted as a stakeholder group), civil society and the technology sector itself.

That is what the ListenUp! company initiative is built on.

We continue to call on influential technology and telecommunications companies to commit to listening directly to the young people their platforms serve.

The verdicts may mark a turning point, but real change will come only when the industry starts listening — and building — with young people, not just for them.

Global Child Forum works with the private sector to advance children’s rights in business strategy, operations, and value chains. Our annual benchmark assesses the world’s most influential companies on children’s rights.