CTRL Agency: Addictive Design on Trial
This week's digest on digital technology in the lives of young men.
CTRL Panel
Last week, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable for harming a teenage girl’s mental health. The $6 million verdict targeted the design features of the platforms—infinite scroll, autoplay, and algorithmic amplification—rather than the content.
That’s a meaningful legal distinction. As my colleague David has pointed out, the verdict is a warning shot for sports betting apps and prediction markets, which rely on the same engagement-maximizing design features as social media.
For more on why the Meta/Youtube case is so important, see this discussion by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin. For a helpful guide to the legal issues at play, see this article by Jonathan Cederbaum in Lawfare.
Pornography Research Webinar
Please join us tomorrow (April 2nd) at 2 p.m. ET for a webinar on what we know about pornography use and its effects. Bailey Way, Shane Kraus, and Josh Grubbs will present their findings alongside Marc Potenza and Emily Rothman. Register here.
The Feed
Two bills take aim at sports prediction market contracts
On March 23rd, Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and John Curtis (R-Utah) introduced legislation to ban prediction market contracts tied to sports and casino-style games. Three days later, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) went further, adding contracts related to military acts, elections, and other government actions.
Addictive technologies are displacement machines
Derek Thompson’s recent piece in The Argument threads the needle between those who blame phones for every modern problem, and those who decry the whole thing as an unfounded moral panic.
“My argument, in short, is this: The smartphone is not a poison, it’s a displacement machine. When you stare into your phone, you are displacing some other activity — sleeping, socializing, playing outside, paying attention in class, watching TV…”
The larger takeaway should not be that displacement is benign because they’re only replacing already-degraded alternatives. The more important conclusion: we need to proactively rebuild and invest in alternatives that promote flourishing.
More evidence on the financial harms of sports betting
A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York report finds that legalizing mobile sports betting increases sportsbook spending by a factor of 10 (from $2.50 to $46), and raises quarterly take-up by 3.1 percentage points. Using credit report data, they find modest increases in delinquency (+0.31 percentage points from a 10.71% base), with the strongest effects among those under 40. The paper also finds significant spillovers across state lines. One of the report’s more striking findings is that average sportsbook spending continues to rise after legalization, with no leveling off in sight.
This adds to the existing evidence of sports bettings deleterious impact on financial security.
Causal evidence for marketing’s impact on gambling
Most evidence linking marketing and gambling behavior has been correlational. A new randomized control trial aims to fill the gap by splitting bettors into two groups, one of which opted out of direct marketing from gambling operators. Over two weeks, the opt-out group had spent 39% less and reported 67% fewer short-term gambling harms compared with the control.
The paper should be taken with a grain of salt, as many of those allocated to the opt-out group didn’t actually opt out and were excluded from the analysis. Still, it bolsters evidence that marketing both attracts new gamblers and amplifies existing gambling behaviors.
What else we’re reading
Senator Chris Murphy on prediction markets - Pablo Torres Finds Out
Interview with CASPR’s Nicholas Reville: Public Policy Misses the Mark on Problem Gambling - Gambling Insider
How to win slots and influence people - Bloomberg
The Political Backlash to Prediction Markets Has Arrived - Front Office Sports
News Brief: Washington Attorney General Sues Kalshi - Event Horizon
A Jury Hit Meta With a $375 Million Verdict. The Open Internet May Pay the Price. - Reason
What we’re missing about the social media verdict - TechnoSapiens
A blow against free speech in California - The Washington Post
If You Want to Build Community, You Have to “Waste Time” with People - Vivek Murthy
Events & Funding Opportunities
Online Gambling and The Public Health Movement: An International Symposium | Boston, MA | April 24th, 2026.
International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking | Las Vegas, NV | May 26-28, 2026.
National Conference on Gambling Addiction & Responsible Gambling | Nashville, TN | July 22-24, 2026 | Call for presentations closed.
What did we miss this week? Do you have an upcoming conference or study we could feature in the next edition? Do you have thoughts on Derek Thompson’s idea of a “displacement machines”? Let us know at bmonline@substack.com, or shoot me a message here.
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