Meta and Google trial: are infinite scroll and autoplay creating addicts?
It was as “easy as ABC”, claimed the lawyer prosecuting a landmark social media harm case against Meta and Google which heard closing arguments this week.The defendants were guilty, said Mark Lanier, of “addicting the brains of children”.Not true, replied the tech companies.Meta insisted providing young people with a “safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work”.Features such as autoplay videos, infinite scrolling and constantly chirruping alerts woven into the fabric of online platforms were central to the six-week trial in Los Angeles, which has been compared to the cases against tobacco companies in the 1990s.
But how do these features work and what are their consequences? Are they creating addicts rather than users or are they just giving consumers more of what they want?There was a time when social media feeds ended.Now the scroll never stops.“There is always something more that will give you another dopamine hit that you react to and there is an infinite supply of that,” said Arturo Béjar, a whistleblower who worked in child online safety at Meta until 2021.“The promise of these things is that there is always going to be something interesting and rewarding and there is a never-ending supply.That is the mechanic of infinite scroll.
” Internal documents surfaced in the trial showed that other Meta employees were worried about signs of rising “reward tolerance” among users.One email conversation in 2020 showed one person referring to Instagram saying: “Oh my gosh y’all IG is a drug.” A colleague responds: “Lol, I mean, all social media.We’re basically pushers.”Béjar told the Guardian: “You are constantly chasing and even when you find what you are chasing … there is the promise of something else that catches your attention right after and with no bounds on that part of the mechanism.
” Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics said: “When you watch young people scroll through their feed, they flip really, really fast,They make split-second decisions to swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, watch, swipe, swipe, watch,There is always a feeling that the next thing could be good and it’s only going to be another second or two,”Videos that autoplay are now everywhere from the Netflix homescreen to YouTube and Instagram,But according to Béjar, who was at Facebook when it became standard, consumers “hated it”.
“They found it disruptive,” he said.“The result was that more people watched more videos and advertisers were happy, but users were unhappy.”Autoplay, he explained, “triggers that reaction we all have as humans to watch enough to understand what is going on”.Lanier compared endless scroll and autoplay to getting free tortilla chips at a restaurant and not being able to stop eating them.Notifications and likes are other parts of the social media apparatus that keep people, especially children, hooked.
Mark Griffith, professor emeritus of behavioural addiction at Nottingham Trent University said that winning the competition for likes, is “a rewarding thing that gives you that little hit of enjoyment”,“When you enjoy something, your body produces dopamine and your body produces adrenaline pointers,” he said,“You produce lots of pleasure chemicals,And you know that in a way you’re becoming addicted to your own body’s endorphins,” It is not, however, the same as addiction to nicotine or cocaine, he said.
“For some people it’s genuinely addictive,” he said.“But by my criteria for addiction, very few people would fulfil that.” He talked about social media’s “moreish quality” instead.Social media consumption mostly falls into the categories of “habitual use”, which can affect productivity and relationships without necessarily ruining your life, and “problematic use” which has more serious implications.Giving evidence this week, Instagram’s chief executive, Adam Mosseri, insisted social media was not “clinically addictive”.
People could be addicted to social media in the same way that they could be addicted to a good television show, but that was not the same thing, he said.Jurors in the case against Meta and Google in Los Angeles began their deliberations on Friday.Their verdict will be closely watched as it could redefine tech companies’ responsibilities for their platform design.
Sydney Biennale 2026: politics is everywhere – but with nuance, beauty and heart
According to its critics, this year’s Biennale of Sydney, under the leadership of Emirati artistic director Hoor Al Qasimi (the first Arab appointed to the role in the festival’s 53-year history) was destined to be a “hate Israel jamboree” at worst; a hotbed of pro-Palestinian politics at best. These fears – which appear to have originated from pro-Palestine statements Al Qasimi and her parents made in the past – are not borne out by the festival itself, which opens this weekend across five key venues, spanning from the inner city out to Penrith and Campbelltown.In an unusual move for the biennale, Al Qasimi wasn’t present at the vernissage – but with or without her, the resulting festival, the event’s 25th, is complex and nuanced. It’s light on spectacle and slogans; not a political chant but rather a polyphony of voices – more than 80 artists from 37 countries – singing their own songs. The theme, “Rememory” – taken from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved – is reflected in works that look to the past to find answers to present dilemmas and envision better futures
Naples museum to allow visually impaired visitors to experience art through touch
The Sansevero Chapel Museum in Naples will allow dozens of visually impaired visitors to take part in a rare tactile experience, letting them touch celebrated works of art including the Veiled Christ, which is widely regarded as one of the most striking masterpieces in the history of sculpture.On 17 March, the museum will host an initiative called La meraviglia a portata di mano – Wonder within reach – organised in partnership with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired of Naples, offering about 80 blind and partially sighted visitors a chance to encounter the marble masterpieces.Visitors will be guided through the chapel by guides who are also visually impaired in a programme designed to place accessibility at the centre of the museum experience.The protective barrier surrounding the sculptures will be removed, allowing participants, wearing latex gloves, to explore by touch the intricate marble surface of the sculptures including Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, which depicts Jesus covered by a transparent shroud made from the same block as the statue. The tactile route will also extend to the reliefs at the feet of the sculptures La Pudicizia and Il Disinganno
Jimmy Kimmel on Pentagon splurging on doughnuts: ‘Is this My 600lb Defense Department?’
On late-night shows, hosts poked fun at the Trump administration’s inconsistent messaging on the Iran war, Pete Hegseth splurging on high-end food at the Pentagon and New York’s John F Kennedy Jr lookalike contest.On what Jimmy Kimmel called “day 11 of Jabba the Hutt’s war on Iran”, the host focused on Trump’s mixed messages over the Middle East conflict.“Trump said yesterday that the war could end very soon, which would be encouraging, had be not also told us he’d end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours,” said Kimmel.“He’s going to make a huge mess and walk away like it’s the new toilet in the Lincoln bathroom.”Kimmel then turned to reports that Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, spent $93bn of US taxpayer money last year, including millions of dollars in September on luxury food items: “$2m on Alaskan king crab, $6
Rapper Lil’ Kim to headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s 2026 Rising festival
The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim will headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s Rising this year, as each festival revealed its programs on Wednesday.The performances at Sydney’s Carriageworks and Melbourne’s Festival Hall will be Lil’ Kim’s first Australian shows in 15 years, celebrating her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.Both Vivid and Rising are staged annually in winter.Rising’s artistic director and chief executive, Hannah Fox, said the 51-year-old rapper, who broke out as a member of Junior MAFIA and was mentored by the Notorious BIG, was on “a really exciting return to form”.“Hard Core and Notorious KIM really did carve a path – there are so many women rappers and femcees now who absolutely followed in her tiny footsteps, her funked-up, sex-positive vibe,” Fox said
Stephen Colbert on US war in Iran: ‘We’re still no closer to learning what the goal is’
Late-night hosts looked into the murky goals, economic impact and disrespect for military protocol of Donald Trump’s war in Iran.“We’re on day 10 of the Iran war,” said Stephen Colbert on Monday evening, “and we’re still no closer to learning what the goal is. Is it regime change? Is it ending a nuclear program? Is it changing the name to Donald Trump’s Iran-a-Lago?”“But we are learning more about the cost,” he noted, as the first week of the war alone is estimated to have cost about $6bn. “Do you know what you could buy with $6bn? Twenty-seven Kristi Noem horsey commercials!” he joked before clips of the very expensive, controversial ad campaign that likely ended Noem’s tenure as secretary of homeland security.Despite the exorbitant cost, Trump said over the weekend that this new surprise war would stop only after Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, to which Iran replied: “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave
Leap Year is patently ridiculous and widely panned. It’s also the perfect romcom
In 2010 the Guardian gave the romcom Leap Year a one-star review. The script was “horrendous”, according to the reviewer: “Afterwards, the only ‘leap’ I felt like making was off a motorway gantry into the fast lane of the M25.”He wasn’t alone. Leap Year has an approval rating of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes; the New York Times called it “so witless, charmless and unimaginative that it can be described as a movie only in the strictly technical sense”.It has been 16 years
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