Social media giants are fuelling addiction in same way as Big Tobacco did - but children are now the targets: David Richards

That light-hearted prospect of fresh eggs for breakfast had triggered the full force of the surveillance economy. As someone who’s spent the best part of three decades in bleeding-edge technology development, I found myself disturbed, not by the ads themselves, but by how effortlessly and invisibly our digital behaviour had been captured, analysed, and monetised. The tracking infrastructure is so embedded in our lives that even those of us in the industry can still be caught off guard.

We’ve been here before. The parallels with Big Tobacco are impossible to ignore – an entire industry built on fuelling dependency, then wrapping it in the language of choice and freedom. Today, it’s Big Tech – social media giants armed with armies of behavioural scientists and psychologists – engineering platforms not for connection, but compulsion. The goal is brutally simple: keep you hooked.

I remember meeting Jeffrey Hammerbacher at a trade show in San Francisco in the mid-2000s, shortly after he left Facebook. A brilliant mind and the man credited with coining the term “data science,” he delivered a line that has stayed with me ever since: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.”

His comment laid bare a profound misallocation of intellectual firepower – not towards solving society’s great challenges, but towards keeping us scrolling.

What’s worse is who’s being targeted. Tobacco companies, for all their sins, mostly aimed at adults. Today’s tech giants are going after children, many still in nappies. According to Ofcom’s 2024 report, over a third of 5-7-year-olds are regular users of social media platforms. This is happening at precisely the time when neural pathways are forming and identities are taking shape, young minds are being exposed to algorithmic influence designed for addiction.

The impact on mental health is now beyond debate. The UK’s Office for National Statistics reports that 48 per cent of teenagers say social media has a mostly negative impact on people their age, up from 32 per cent two years ago. Teenage girls are particularly vulnerable, reporting far higher levels of distress and anxiety.

The World Health Organisation notes that one in ten teenagers now struggles to control their use of social media and suffers negative consequences as a result.

These aren’t just abstract statistics. Research links excessive social media use with disrupted sleep, reduced physical activity, and symptoms of depression. Between 2009 and 2014, hospital admissions for intentional self-harm rose by 110 per cent among Canadian girls – a trend that mirrors social media’s explosive rise. In the UK, 91 per cent of 15 to 16-year-olds use social media daily. On TikTok alone, they spend an average of 97 minutes each day.

Governments are beginning to respond. In April 2024, Australia proposed banning access to social media for under-16s – a bold but increasingly necessary move. Experts believe it could lead to reduced anxiety and bullying, improved sleep, and a resurgence of face-to-face social skills. Critics question enforcement, but few argue with the intent: reclaiming childhood from systems designed to monetise it.

If social media really is the new smoking, our response must be proportionate. That means giving parents clear, evidence-based guidance. It means schools setting sensible boundaries, including tech-free spaces where attention spans can recover. And it means policymakers must seriously consider whether age-based restrictions, like Australia’s, are not only justified but overdue.

When a casual chat about backyard chickens can summon an army of targeting algorithms, we’re dealing with technologies of unprecedented power.

I’m no Luddite—these systems, used ethically, could personalise learning or strengthen social ties. But without thoughtful regulation and public scrutiny, they risk undermining the very foundations of childhood.

What’s at stake isn’t just screen time. It’s how we raise the next generation.