95bFM Tech-bacco trials: social media companies and their impacts on New Zealand’s public health
04 February, 2026
Interview by Alex Fox, adapted by Vihan Dalal
Social media companies in the US have been taken to court over their platforms being harmful and addictive to children. University of Auckland academic Dr Samantha Marsh says tech giants might use the same arguments used by tobacco companies when the latter were taken to court. She also highlights the lack of research on the public health harms caused by social media in New Zealand.
As social media giants Meta, YouTube, and TikTok are taken to court over causing harm to children, Senior Research Fellow in General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Auckland, Dr Samantha Marsh, claims social media companies might follow the playbook used by tobacco companies when they were taken to court decades ago. She also added that social media’s impacts on public health in New Zealand have been under-researched.
A series of trials have kicked off in the Los Angeles Superior Court, bringing tech CEOs in the same room. The plaintiffs, a group of parents, teenagers, and school districts, claim social media companies have deliberately designed their platforms to make them addictive. The 1,600 plaintiffs also say children fall victim to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harm once they’re addicted to social media.
The University of Auckland’s Dr Samantha Marsh told 95bFM’s The Wire that social media companies may follow in the footsteps of tobacco giants.
She touted the current trials as this generation’s “tobacco trials”, referring to the landmark 1998 case where tobacco companies were liable to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict their products to adults. Marsh suspects the changes made by tobacco companies three decades ago might inspire social media companies to follow their footsteps.
“We are hopeful that these companies will be forced to change the way that they are designing their products so that they can't have a persuasive design behind it.”
Marsh says the arguments used by the tech giants in the trial might be similar to the ones used by cigarette companies: parents and children are responsible for their own social media use.
“So that was one that was really important for smoking, was saying that people had made a choice to smoke, and so they are actually responsible for the injuries that happened because they chose to smoke.”
Although research on social media’s impact on public health in New Zealand is limited, Rangatahi Māori are disproportionately targeted by tech companies. A report authored by Marsh found Maori youth spend more time on social media than Pakeha youth, and are more prone to be exposed to harmful content online.
“We did a survey at the end of last year and we found the average amount of time spent on social media is two and a half hours for New Zealand teens, but almost a third said that they spend at least five hours a day on these platforms.”
The survey also found that 22% of New Zealand’s youth meet the criteria for problematic social media use, with four out of 10 participants wishing social media was never invented.
“That's when we're beginning to talk about how they're [social media platforms] designed and how they engage our kids for really long periods of time. We're seeing kids who are kind of trapped on these platforms and they don't want to be trapped on them,”
Marsh has called for age restrictions and says the trials can affect public perception of social media companies, regardless of the outcome. Although this will take a while, according to her, it can force social media companies to change their products.
“I think that's important because, you know, it could be a really long time before these companies change their products in a way that actually makes them safe for kids. And even making changes, we need to see that those changes do make them safe because that remains to be seen.”
