Digital Addiction Is A Public Health Problem. Is Public Health Law The Solution?

By Sofia Palmieri, Vincent Joralemon, Carmel Shachar, I. Glenn Cohen. Published in Health Affairs Forefront on March 17, 2026.

Digital technologies now occupy a central role in social connection, education, commerce, and health care. Yet growing evidence suggests that social media, algorithmic feeds, and AI systems may encourage compulsive, addiction-like use. Globally, an estimated 210 million people meet criteria for problematic internet use. In the United States, young adults appear disproportionately represented: Social media users aged 18–22 account for roughly 40 percent of Americans who report internet addiction. Researchers have warned that real-time, hyper personalized AI systems may create a new class of addictive content akin to “digital heroin,” capable of hijacking the brain’s reward system in ways comparable to substance use disorders.

This article argues that digital addiction should be understood as a public health problem—one arising not from individual failure but from commercially engineered products—and that public health law offers a proven framework for response. Across three domains, regulators have developed approaches to products engineered to exploit human vulnerabilities: Tobacco regulation restricts access and denormalizes use; opioid regulation controls availability through supervised prescription; and gambling regulation (perhaps the closest analogue) permits the activity while mandating design safeguards to mitigate engineered addictiveness. Each offers transferable lessons. The question is which tools to deploy, and whether the current moment demands all three tool sets.

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