Author ORCID Identifier

Matthew Lawrence 0000-0003-4748-501X 

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Keywords

Addiction, Gambling, Technology, Children, Regulation of social media, Public health

Abstract

In her important book, Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein illustrates the value of a comparative approach, drawing lessons from fights around the regulation of tobacco and ultra-processed food for the regulation of social media. Building on Bernstein’s work, this symposium contribution aims to draw additional insight from experience with drug and gambling regulation for the regulation of social media, video games, AI, and other potentially-addictive technologies.

Specifically, after introducing Bernstein’s book and the foundation it lays, we draw six lessons from the study of psychoactive drugs and gambling. As we elaborate below: Lesson one is that while fraught, the terms “addiction” and especially “addictive design” can be the right ones for capturing distinctive concerns that have been raised about the impact of certain new technologies on freedom of thought. Lesson two is that the evidentiary standards public health, neuroscience, epidemiology, and other scientific disciplines apply to questions of truth differ between each other and, critically, often differ from the standards relevant to legal or policymaking processes. Carelessness in inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary work, therefore, can lead inadvertently to epistemic bias. Lesson three is that science can be bent by industry; that just as economic power can be translated into political power by distorting electoral processes, economic power can be translated into epistemic power by distorting research processes. Lesson four is that while social media has the potential not only to harm mental health but to improve it, in medicine and public health, “consent” to knowingly alter a person’s mental pathways for their benefit requires much more than the “consent” typical in other contexts. Lesson five is that regulating users of addictive products (rather than regulating to address the design of the products or reduce the harm experienced by addicted users) often backfires and does so inequitably. Lesson six is that state interests in regulating to further the public’s health are particularly strong when it comes to children.

First Page

623

Publication Title

Seattle University Law Review

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