Story summary
In its most recent legal settlement, Meta agreed to pay $17 billion and implement design changes to better protect users aged 13 to 17 by imposing a two-hour daily cap on Facebook and Instagram usage. Additionally, there will be a lockout period between midnight and 6am with notifications silenced from 10pm, hidden "like" counts, restrictions on cosmetic-surgery filters, and an option to revert to an un-optimized-for-your-attention news feed.
Concerns about the impact of social media platforms like Meta (formerly Facebook), YouTube, and Snapchat are growing. In October, teenagers in Los Angeles will argue that these companies caused serious mental health issues among young users. This comes after a grandmother's observation that her grandchildren could not live without their devices, reflecting broader societal worries about the negative effects of excessive screen time.
Legal challenges against tech giants continue to mount; recently, a lawsuit started in New Mexico focusing on user data misuse related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. These legal actions underscore increasing scrutiny and public concern over how social media affects younger generations' mental health and well-being.
Written for “Facebook Short Video Harm Debate” on 2026-09-17,
grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
A few years ago, when I’d just started graduate work, I was waiting with a grandmother finishing a questionnaire I’d handed her about her 19-year-old granddaughter who was in the testing room next door.
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who → start → room
They were participating in a study that used brain imaging to look at adolescent development.
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that → participate → development
The older woman had a soft southern accent and a warm laugh.
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woman → have → accent
“What’s funny?” I asked.
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I → ’ → ?
“Cellphone use,” she said, gesturing at a question about how much time her granddaughter spent on her device.
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granddaughter → say → device
And my younger granddaughter, she just turned 18 – I mean, I think she’d die if you took the phone away from her.
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you → turn → her
I told her that’s what I studied – “well,” I said.
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I → tell → what
She shook her head.
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She → shake → head
“Sometimes I think that’s the worst thing that ever happened to us.”
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that → think → us
In the years since, that sense of broad, far-reaching harm has worked its way from our collective consciousness into thousands of high-profile lawsuits currently making their way through US courts.
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sense → reach → courts
Last week, yet another began in New Mexico, focused on user data and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
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another → begin → data
In October, teenagers in Los Angeles will argue that Meta, YouTube and Snap caused serious mental health issues.
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Meta → argue → issues
The most high-profile suits have focused on adolescent mental health, child sexual exploitation and, to a lesser extent, data privacy.
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suits → focus → extent
But in the years I’ve been researching how digital media is changing us, I’ve been increasingly concerned with how little we know about its cognitive effects, particularly those of short-form video, the format that now dominates every social media platform.
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that → research → platform
The vague sense that we are being cognitively hollowed out, dulled and diminished by our latest technology is captured in the term “brain rot”, recognized by the makers of the Oxford English Dictionary as the 2024 word of the year.
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we → hollow → year
And the more researchers look at it, the more it seems to describe distinct cognitive changes that are now being borne out by science.
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that → look → science
The literature is still limited, but the most recent meta-analysis, published in Psychological Bulletin, examined the roughly 70 quantitative studies focused on the mental health and cognitive effects of short-form video.
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analysis → publish → video
The majority of this research comes from China, where platforms are heavily regulated.
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platforms → come → China
Still the authors found an association with negative cognitive changes – stronger, in fact, than the association with poorer mental health.
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authors → find → health
But relatively few studies looked at anything else, such as memory, decision-making, language or reasoning.
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studies → look → memory
In that analysis, the available research on memory amounted to a single study.
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research → amount → study
Whether individuals described their use as compulsive – or something they couldn’t control – predicted the worst cognitive outcomes.
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they → describe → outcomes
Mark Zuckerberg and other social media executives have repeatedly argued that current science doesn’t back up public concern.
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science → argue → concern
And it’s true that active social media use – connecting with friends and family, sharing updates, writing and creating content – can be psychologically and cognitively beneficial.
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use → ’ → content
The trouble is, tech companies have increasingly ignored the preferences of their users and promoted passive engagement, pushing the zombie-making infinite scroll and time-dissolving short-video feed – a digital format that seems almost universally damaging.
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that → ignore → scroll
In my own research, I’ve found surprising relationships between memory and both cellphone use and short-form video.
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I → find → memory
These early findings call for replication, but they held even after accounting for depression and anxiety.
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they → call → depression
The more time young adults spent on their phones, the worse they performed on a test of working memory, the system that holds information in mind while you’re using it.
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you → spend → it
What you rely on to follow an argument or carry out a plan.
And in study participants who described their short-form video use as out of control, episodic memory was measurably weaker.
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memory → rely → control
This form of memory might be thought of as the internal record of your own life – the ability to travel back and revisit various moments.
uncertain
form → think → moments
It is how we develop our sense of self in relationship to the world over time.
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we → develop → time
I’ve been dogged by the idea that, due to my own digital media habits, I might be moving through my days with a befogged sense of what I just did.
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I → dog → what
What I should do next.
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I → do → What
Even more alarming is the possibility that we are becoming less and less self-aware and creative in our own internal lives.
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we → become → lives
Memory and imagination run on the same circuitry.
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Memory → run → circuitry
In a 2007 study, patients with damage to the hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub, struggled to construct imagined scenes.
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patients → struggle → scenes
Remembering the past and picturing a reality you haven’t lived appear to be the same act, run in opposite directions.
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you → remember → directions
If we are degrading the one, we might be degrading the other, damaging our ability to envision and enact a new future.
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we → degrade → future
Perhaps these cognitive relationships feed on themselves as a sort of cyclone, driving diminished capacity that in turn results in more helpless digital media consumption.
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that → feed → consumption
Perhaps collective cognitive changes could have large sociological or political implications.
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changes → have → implications
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
