When most people think about health, they think of food and exercise as the main factors that determine it.

And to be fair, I have spent years writing and speaking about both. Nutrition and movement are powerful levers. They shape inflammation, insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular risk, hormone balance, and even mood.

But I have never believed health begins and ends at the dinner plate or in the gym.

Health is environmental.

The air we breathe…the chemicals we are exposed to…the light we see at night. The stress we carry. The relationships we nurture.

Even the information we consume.

And increasingly, one of the most powerful environmental inputs in modern life is social media.

As an integrative physician, I am trained to look for root causes.

And when I see rising anxiety in children, increasing rates of depression in adolescents, disrupted sleep patterns in adults, and attention fragmentation across all age groups, I have to ask: what changed in the environment?

One major shift is obvious.

We now carry an endlessly stimulating digital world in our pockets

Why We Must Watch Dopamine and the Developing Brain

A landmark civil trial recently began in Los Angeles County Superior Court, asking whether social media companies can be held liable for allegedly designing platforms that hook children and keep them engaged despite known risks.

The plaintiff, a young woman who began using social media in grade school, claims platforms like Instagram and YouTube were engineered to capture young users early and sustain engagement through design features that encouraged compulsive use.

Internal company documents presented in court allegedly referenced goals around viewer addiction and bringing in users as tweens.

The companies dispute those claims, arguing that social media addiction is not universally recognized as a formal diagnosis and that external life factors, including trauma, bullying, and mental health history, are more significant drivers of harm.

From a medical standpoint, that debate is not as simple as either side would like.

Addiction is not defined solely by a substance.

It is defined by behavioral patterns, neurological reinforcement, loss of control, and continued use despite harm. We understand this from decades of research on gambling, gaming, and other behavioral dependencies.

Whether social media qualifies as a formal diagnostic category is less important than this question: Does it interact with human neurobiology in a way that can dysregulate reward pathways?

The answer is almost certainly yes.

The developing brain is uniquely sensitive to reward signaling.

Dopamine pathways in children and adolescents are still maturing.

When you combine that biological vulnerability with algorithms designed to maximize engagement, variable reward schedules, infinite scroll features, and constant social feedback, you create a potent reinforcement loop.

This is not conspiracy thinking. It’s behavioral psychology.

Variable rewards, the same principle that drives slot machines, are among the most powerful reinforcement systems we know. You do not know when the next like, comment, or entertaining video will appear.

That unpredictability strengthens the behavioral loop.

Does that mean social media alone causes depression or suicide?

No. Other factors like trauma, family environment, genetic predisposition, bullying, and preexisting anxiety all matter deeply.

But here is where I approach this as a systems physician.

If you take a vulnerable nervous system and place it in a highly stimulating, comparison-driven, sleep-disrupting digital environment, you definitely increase the chances that bad things will happen.

How Social Media Overloads Our Systems 

One of the most consistent patterns people struggle with is mood instability and disrupted sleep.

And our phones and computers are a major factor in this development.

Social media is what most people use these devices for at the end of the night.

Blue light exposure at night suppresses melatonin production.

Endless scrolling delays bedtime and notifications fragment sleep cycles. Poor sleep impairs emotional regulation, increases cortisol, worsens insulin sensitivity, and heightens anxiety.

The nervous system requires darkness and rest to recalibrate.

Chronic digital stimulation interferes with that recalibration.

Another underappreciated factor is social comparison.

Human beings are wired for belonging. And while the lawsuit underway concerns adolescents using social media, developmental neurologic factors amplify their susceptibility to social ranking and peer acceptance. It doesn’t change the fact that people who are constantly exposed to curated images of peers, influencers, and filtered perfection can begin to feel a distorted self-perception.

The brain does not distinguish well between real-life comparison and digital comparison.

Repeated exposure can elevate stress responses and internal narratives of inadequacy.

And while this doesn’t happen to everyone, it’s affecting far more people who use social media than those who don’t.

And for the child already struggling with anxiety or self-esteem, social media can amplify vulnerabilities.

The courtroom is trying to answer whether companies should be held liable for alleged harms.

As a physician, I am asking a different question: “How does this environment interact with human biology?”

Legal liability requires clean lines of causation.

Biology rarely provides clean lines.

If you removed Instagram from one child’s life, would everything be fixed? Probably not. But would their stress load decrease? Would sleep improve? Would the comparison exposure drop? In many cases, yes.

Health is cumulative.

My Verdict on Social Media

I am not anti-technology.

On the contrary, I think it’s a wonderful tool.

Yes, social media can connect families, educate communities, and support creative expression. It can provide belonging where isolation once dominated.

But like any environmental input, dosage and timing matter.

For children whose nervous systems are still wiring …whose impulse control is still developing and whose identity formation is fragile…

I think it is a real danger.

Think about it this way.

Would you let a child sit in a casino for four hours a day? Of course not.

And because social media triggers the same reward pathways, we should give pause to normalizing unlimited exposure to algorithm-driven platforms.

Right now, parents could start with things like

• Limiting nighttime use.

• Delaying platform access until later adolescence.

• Encouraging device-free meals

• Creating tech boundaries in bedrooms.

When I say health is environmental, this is what I mean.

It is not only about what you eat. It is about what you see. What you consume mentally. What your nervous system is bathing in all day long.

We live in an age of unprecedented digital stimulation. And we are still learning what that means for developing brains.

If we want healthier kids, healthier families, and healthier adults, we have to broaden our lens to focus on what affects them, positively or negatively.

Food matters. Exercise matters.

But so does the digital environment we allow into our homes, our bedrooms, and our children’s developing brains.

And that conversation is long overdue.