Big Tech Is on Trial. Personal Responsibility Isn’t and That’s the Real Problem

The usual villains of screen time are finally being marched into a courtroom.

Jury selection kicks off today in Los Angeles for a civil trial brought by parents who are suing Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, claiming these platforms addicted their kids and wrecked their mental health. Depression. Anxiety. Body dysmorphia. Suicidal thoughts. All of it neatly packaged and handed to Big Tech as the sole culprit.

The Design Feature Defense and the Convenient Disappearance of Parenting

The centerpiece of the case is a now-19-year-old woman who says design features like infinite scroll hooked her when she was still a minor and sent her mental health into a tailspin. The companies, predictably, deny it. They say they’ve invested millions in safety tools, parental controls, and warnings. A six-week courtroom circus is now underway, with Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri expected to testify. Snap’s CEO would’ve been there too, but Snap quietly settled last week and slipped out the side door.

The Social Media Trial Everyone Wants to Turn into Big Tobacco

This trial is being framed as a “bellwether.” Translation: lawyers are licking their chops. There are more than 3,000 similar lawsuits in California alone and another 2,000 sitting in federal court. The media is already dusting off the greatest hits comparisons to Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, accusing social media companies of knowingly hiding addiction risks.

A Culture Addicted to Blame Instead of Responsibility

And here’s where my blood pressure spikes. Because the loudest thing missing from this entire narrative is personal responsibility.

Let’s say the quiet part out loud: these kids didn’t buy the phones. The apps didn’t magically install themselves. The parents handed over a supercomputer, turned their backs, and called it “modern parenting.”

We baby-proof kitchens. We put locks on cabinets, gates on stairs, and special child locks on car doors because we understand something fundamental: responsibility means anticipating risk and acting like an adult. But somehow, when it comes to a smartphone—the most powerful behavioral manipulation device ever invented—we shrug and outsource parenting to Silicon Valley.

That’s not negligence by Meta. That’s laziness at home.

The Digital Babysitter Nobody Wants to Admit They Hired

I’ve seen this firsthand. Walk through Magic Kingdom sometime. You’ll see parents pushing strollers down Main Street U.S.A. with fireworks overhead, characters waving, and music playing… while the kid in the stroller has a screen six inches from their face. Not looking up. Not engaged. Not forming memories. Just quietly anesthetized by YouTube.

That phone isn’t a tool, it’s a digital babysitter. And instead of owning that choice, these parents want a jury to absolve them of it.

Why Ayn Rand Still Matters in a World of Lawsuits and Excuses

This is where a little Ayn Rand would do the world some good. Responsibility doesn’t disappear just because something is convenient. You don’t get to hand off your judgment, your authority, and your role as a parent, then act shocked when the outcome isn’t great. Blaming someone else for your own stupidity and sloth doesn’t make you a victim. It makes you dishonest.

And before anyone clutches their pearls, no, I’m not saying social media companies are saints. I’m saying this: you don’t get to skip your job and then sue someone else for the consequences.

Now here’s the part business owners should pay attention to.

When You Abdicate Responsibility, You Lose Control

This mindset, blaming external forces instead of owning choices, is the same disease that kills companies.

Owners blame the economy. Blame Google. Blame Facebook. Blame their employees. Blame their customers. Blame anyone except the mirror. Meanwhile, they ignore the decisions they made, the systems they didn’t build, the boundaries they never enforced, and the standards they tolerated.

Responsibility is leverage.

When you own the inputs, you control the outputs. When you abdicate responsibility, you hand your future to someone else and hope they behave better than you did.

That never ends well.

So yes, let the tech CEOs testify and the lawyers argue. But let’s stop pretending this is a morality play where helpless parents were ambushed by evil apps. This is a story about adults choosing convenience over responsibility, and then being outraged by the bill that eventually comes due.

Own your choices.

Or don’t be surprised when someone else owns you.