In 2023, several U.S. states sued TikTok, alleging that the platform’s design encourages compulsive use and describing it as a form of “digital nicotine.” But is social media really the nicotine of the twenty-first century? This course examines how the concept of addiction has been defined, debated, and adopted across history—and how it became attached to media technologies, from radio and television to video games to social media. In addition to tracing these longer histories, the course situates contemporary claims about “digital addiction” within recent lawsuits, regulatory actions, and policy debates concerning technology companies, youth mental health, and platform responsibility. [Tracks C, M]