Are phones the new tobacco? Social media companies are in the dock for their effect on mental health. Some see parallels to addictive substances.
‘I was a social media addict aged six’
Locked in: KGM told a jury in the USA that she would wake up in the middle of the night to check her notifications. Glossary
Testify - To give evidence or a statement, usually in court, about what you know or experienced.
Meta - The new name of the company which owns Facebook and Instagram.
Depressed - Depression is low mood that affects someone's daily life, and can last for weeks or months.
Plaintiffs - The people who bring a legal case against someone in court.
Snap - The parent company of Snapchat.
Tobacco - A substance smoked in cigarettes. It contains nicotine, which is addictive.
CEOs - Chief Executive Officers. The highest-ranking person in a company.
Nicotine - The substance found in tobacco that people become addicted to. It can also be made artificially.
Alienation - Emotional separation. It derives from a Latin word meaning foreign or strange.
Dopamine - A hormone and neurotransmitter that plays several important roles in the brain and body, providing us with positive sensations, rewarding us for evolutionarily good behaviours like eating food.