I have watched social media become Gen Z’s cigarettes - Meta’s changes will not cure the addiction

Their grandchildren will see it as a destructive relic of the past and ask, "Were you really allowed unlimited access to social media as a child?"

Just as we are shocked to hear that doctors once prescribed cigarettes to pregnant women, they will be horrified at how much unregulated access we had to something that, by now, has been shown again and again to harm our health. But last week, when Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement and a raft of changes meant to better protect children online, that off-the-cuff comment took on a new weight.

First, the relief: these changes are meaningful, insofar as they are a step in the right direction. A default two-hour daily limit, hidden likes, and the option of a non-algorithmic feed are vital for adults as much as for children. Meta has also said it will switch off notifications at night and during school hours, unlockable only by a parent.

Even this gives me pause, though. Anyone who has tried the "no notifications" route knows it usually just means you open the app more, checking it yourself rather than waiting to be summoned.

The reason is simple: these are products built to be hard to put down. An infinite feed works on what psychologists call variable reward: like a slot machine, most posts are forgettable, but every so often one lands, and our brains cannot predict which swipe will deliver it. That uncertainty keeps us pulling the lever because dopamine spikes in anticipation of a reward, not when we receive it. There is no last page and nothing that tells the brain it has had enough. In other words, our feeds are built to keep satisfaction perpetually just out of reach.

As a result, the brain learns that reward lives in the app, arriving faster and more reliably than anywhere else. Because of this, the slower pleasures of ordinary life (a book, a walk, a real conversation) start to feel flat by comparison. It is the same tolerance loop as any addiction; the more we feed it, the more it takes just to feel normal.

The numbers reveal how many teens are stuck here: the average American teenager now spends 4.8 hours a day on social media, with seventeen-year-olds closer to six. The US Surgeon General has warned that more than three hours a day doubles the risk of anxiety and depression.

As such, I struggle to celebrate these changes. Nearly all of them, bar the questionable notification one, are optional. It reminds me of when tobacco companies, faced with the evidence, introduced light cigarettes and filter tips: a reassuring tweak that left the addictive core untouched. When a company's profits depend on compulsive use, we should be wary of any promise to make its product less compelling. Would a casino willingly cut its own opening hours? These concessions are not a change of heart, but the minimum a courtroom could extract.

I can sympathise, too, with the idea that these are not evil people setting out to destroy children. They are business people making money from a product, as any business does. I don't think they intended to build something this dangerous, but they have. This is the reality we live in, and it is precisely why we need to approach any attempt to reduce our profitable dependencies with caution. A 'lighter' cigarette is still a cigarette.

And say I'm (hopefully) just a cynic, completely wrong, and these changes really do regulate social media use for under-18s. We are still left with a generation that has become dependent on a product to feel okay. Simply taking it away does not cure the underlying mechanisms; remove it without a plan, and there is a real risk they reach for another, often more harmful, substance or behaviour. Almost no one is discussing this: ending one dependency carelessly is just the beginning of the next.

So, for any parent planning to seriously cut back their child's usage, I recommend approaching it the way you would help someone through an addiction.

A few things that help:

• Treat it as a detox: The good news is that, unlike a drug, the physical side of this is mild. There will be a rough patch, but eventually they will start to feel better, not worse.
• Find real alternatives: Sport, drama, music, anything with structure and, ideally, other people. The aim is to replace the connection they were getting online, not just remove it.
• Let them go through the withdrawal: Do not shame or punish the discomfort. Instead, try to name what is happening and help them see the scale of it for themselves.
• Spend time with them: Your attention is the thing the algorithm was standing in for. Restlessness is far easier to sit with alongside someone who is not judging you for it.

None of this is easy, and the solution certainly isn't. But we have to reckon with the fact that this is a major public health crisis, one that will take real, sustained effort to solve, and far more than any settlement can offer.

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Jan Gerber is the founder and CEO of mental health and addiction clinic Paracelsus Recovery.

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