Tech companies face reckoning over addictive design as Zuckerberg appears in court

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has testified in a landmark Los Angeles trial examining whether major social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, were deliberately designed to be addictive for children and teens. An RMIT expert explains.

Dr Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information

"This is the first major lawsuit to test whether social media companies should be accountable for psychological harm based on the addictiveness of their algorithms, rather than the content they serve up.

"It is to be tested whether design decisions by these companies were made to encourage 'addiction'.

"The harm social media can cause isn't inevitable: it is the result of design choices made by social media companies.

"These design choices could be different - safer and more humane."

Dr Dana McKay is an Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information in the School of Computing Technologies at RMIT University. Her research focuses on ensuring advances in digital information technologies make the world a fairer and more equitable place.

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