There is a recent [March 29, 2026] guest essay in The New York Times, Your Chatbot Isn’t a Therapist, stating that, “When people feel overwhelmed by anxiety or intrusive thoughts, it can be easier to turn to a computer rather than a person. The chatbot won’t laugh at its users, berate them or ignore them. It’s always available. The typical chatbot response feels comforting; A.I. responses are designed to be warm, confident and validating.”
“Chatbots are unfailingly, inhumanly patient. They’re happy to answer the same question asked three different ways. They don’t get angry, and they generally reply in language that matches a user’s own emotional intensity. Many users experience them as empathetic — even more so than human physicians, according to one recent study.”
“The chatbots often mirror the patient’s language and treat the belief as a plausible premise to explore rather than a flawed perspective to gently challenge. In extreme cases, this can lead to psychiatric destabilization.”
There is a recent [March 30, 2026] analysis on Yahoo Finance, Meta and Google lost a major social media addiction lawsuit. Their troubles are far from over., stating that, “Jurors in the trial said Meta and YouTube knew the designs of their platforms were dangerous, that users wouldn’t realize the danger, and that the companies failed to warn of the danger when a reasonable platform would have.”
“Critics have traditionally argued against the content social platforms host, saying that it is dangerous and damaging to younger users. But Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields internet companies from being held liable for hosting user content and for making “good faith” efforts to moderate content they find “objectionable.””
“Australia has already imposed a ban on teens under 16 using social media services and, according to Reuters, others have followed suit. Brazil, for instance, now bans features like infinite scroll. Other countries also ban teen use or are crafting legislation to do so.”
What Drives the Mind to Addiction?
There is a severe brain science question, in the social media addiction problem, that indicates that while social media giants are culpable, there is a reason that the mind is just susceptible to that capture.
Why is this the case? While the legal battles persist, what should be done on the brain science side, against this massive problem? One of the ways to approach solving it is to map the problem. Simply, to map the human mind and then prospect how addiction takes hold.
This mapping can be called theoretical neuroimaging, such that destinations and relays are displayed in a dynamic way to show an approximate parallel of what is going on in the human mind.
If addiction is a destination, then the relay between that destination and the element of the addiction [in this case, social media], could be responsible for continuous and problematic use.
Now, there are some keywords, or say, images, texts, audios and videos, that may also be going to certain destinations, then relaying to that of addiction, resulting in the hook experience.
Showing this, as well as resulting scores, could tell consumers what they are up against. Such that, when adjustments are made to features like doom scrolling, time limits, notification cuts, and so forth, they can be more effective.
This is what the American Academy of Pediatrics could have sought, ensuring to keep the fight at the core, the brain, not just adding new labels, like calling social media addiction the euphemism: problematic internet use.
The postulation in Conceptual Biomarkers and Theoretical Biological Factors for Psychiatric and Intelligence Nosology can structure the approach, including against AI delusion and psychosis.
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