Presumably, continued exposure to the broader media narrative around social media addiction has even larger and more profound effects. Perhaps one could argue that everyone screaming about social media addiction is doing more real harm than any actual social media product itself. The researchers analyzed three years of news articles and found that stories about “social media addiction” vastly outnumber stories about “social media habits.” The addiction framing is everywhere. In addition, over the 36 assessment months, the number of articles discussing “social media habits” never approached the number of articles including the term “social media addiction” (see Fig. In addition, the May 2023 Surgeon General’s warning about social media addiction seems to have contributed to the steady drumbeat of new articles during the April-June 2023 period for “social media addiction.”To be clear: most social media companies absolutely design their products with increasing engagement in mind.