Smithereens

The premise

London rideshare driver Chris Gillhaney parks outside the offices of Smithereen, a Facebook-and-Twitter-like social giant, and kidnaps a young intern, Jaden. His one demand: a direct phone call with the company's reclusive, meditating CEO, Billy Bauer. As police, FBI and Bauer's handlers scramble, Chris finally confesses why: years earlier he killed his fiancee in a head-on crash because he glanced at a Smithereen notification for two seconds. The episode skewers a world engineered to hijack attention - the platforms are deliberately addictive, executives feel powerless against their own creation, and one buzz can end a life.

What the episode imagines

• 📱✔Social media addiction
• 👁️✔Corporate surveillance
• 🔹✔Tech company accountability

How close are we in 2026?

The episode's core claim - that platforms are engineered to be compulsive and that this kills - is now the explicit position of US courts and regulators. In October 2023, 42 attorneys general sued Meta in federal and state court, alleging Facebook and Instagram were deliberately designed to hook minors; in October 2024, 13 states and Washington DC sued TikTok, citing infinite scroll, autoplay, likes and notifications as features meant to trigger "bursts of dopamine" in young brains. Both cases survived dismissal in 2024-2025 and are heading toward trial, with Massachusetts' high court hearing arguments in December 2025.

The smoking-gun documents read like Billy Bauer's confession. Court filings unsealed in federal court in Northern California in November 2025 describe Meta's "Project Mercury," a 2019 study with Nielsen showing users who quit Facebook for a week felt less depressed, anxious and lonely - findings the company allegedly shelved. Internal notes compared the app to a "drug," and whistleblowers Frances Haugen and Arturo Bejar testified the firm buried evidence of teen harm. On June 17, 2024, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a cigarette-style warning label on social media, citing research that teens using it over three hours daily face double the risk of mental-health problems.

The fatal-distraction premise is also real and measurable. NHTSA recorded 3,275-plus deaths a year in distraction-affected crashes, and reported that in 2024 one in three crashes happened within one minute of a driver using their phone. Chris's two-second glance is the statistical norm, not melodrama.

Key real-world developments

• States sue TikTok over addictive design

  In October 2024, 13 states and DC sued TikTok, alleging infinite scroll, autoplay and notifications were built to trigger "dopamine" hits in children. Minnesota's AG defeated TikTok's dismissal motion in March 2026.

• Surgeon General demands warning label

  On June 17, 2024, Vivek Murthy urged Congress to slap a cigarette-style warning on social media, citing data that teens using it 3+ hours daily double their risk of anxiety and depression.

• Meta's buried 'Project Mercury' study

  November 2025 court filings revealed Meta's 2019 Nielsen experiment found quitting Facebook for a week cut depression and loneliness - results it allegedly shelved while internally calling the app a 'drug.'

• Phones still kill on the road

  NHTSA logged over 3,200 distraction-related deaths in 2024 and found one in three crashes occurred within a minute of phone use - the exact scenario behind Chris's fatal glance.

The verdict

Smithereens isn't speculative fiction - it's a 2019 documentary that aged into 2026 fact. The deliberate-addiction thesis is now litigated by dozens of states with Meta's own buried research as evidence, the Surgeon General wants warning labels, and NHTSA confirms phones kill thousands of drivers a year. The only fictional flourish is the kidnapping and a CEO who can pause the machine; in reality executives, like Billy Bauer, claim the algorithm is beyond their control. The gap between this episode and life isn't technological - it's that no one has been held accountable yet.

Sources

• NPR: 13 states and D.C. sue TikTok, alleging it harms kids and is designed to addict them (2024)
• HHS: Social Media and Youth Mental Health - U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory
• TIME: 7 Allegations Against Meta in Newly Unsealed Filings (2025)
• Washington Post: States sue TikTok, saying its addictive features hook children (2024)
• NHTSA: Distracted Driving in 2024 (CrashStats Research Note)
• Fortune: Massachusetts high court hears case on Instagram, Facebook addictive features (2025)

Reviewed and updated by the How Close to Black Mirror editorial team on 20 June 2026. Progress scores are reasoned editorial estimates based on the cited sources, not scientific measurements.