Jury selection begins today in Los Angeles for a trial against Meta and Snap brought by two plaintiffs who claim the companies’ platforms were designed to be addictive — the latest in a wave of cases focusing on social media’s impact on young people’s mental health.
The plaintiffs sued in 2023, alleging that endless scrolling, Snapstreaks and other features on social media platforms kept them hooked and harmed their mental health.
The first, a 16-year-old from Illinois identified in court documents as S.J., started using Snapchat as a young child and alleges the app’s features led to compulsive use and contributed to depression, reduced sleep, anxiety, an eating disorder, suicidal ideation and self-harm. The other plaintiff, K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, said her use of Meta’s platforms and Snapchat from a young age also contributed to mental health issues and self-harm.
“Defendants defectively designed the platforms to specifically appeal to and addict minors and young adults, who were particularly unable to appreciate the risks posed by the platforms, and particularly susceptible to harms from those products,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued in the complaint, filed in a Los Angeles trial court.
TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube were part of the original lawsuit, but settled ahead of the trial. Meta also settled with S.J., the Illinois plaintiff.
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the company disagrees with allegations brought by K.D.B.
“A young person’s mental health is shaped by many factors, as the evidence in this trial will show,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The plaintiff used TikTok far more than Instagram or Facebook, and her personal circumstances were a substantial factor in her struggles.”
A spokesperson for Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, also disputed the claims and defended the company’s actions.
“We have built safeguards into the platform, introduced safety tools and educational resources, and we believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first, and that these allegations fundamentally misrepresent the plaintiffs’ experiences on Snapchat and how our platform was designed,” they said in a statement.
The companies are expected to argue that other factors, not their platforms, were responsible for the plaintiffs’ mental health issues.
Plaintiffs are seeking an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages.
“This will be the first case against Snapchat and the first time the public has a chance to see some of their documents,” Mark Lanier, the founder of The Lanier Law Firm and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said in an email.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel are all expected to take the stand during the trial, which the plaintiffs’ lawyers say will likely run until mid-December. Opening statements are scheduled to begin in early November, with Judge Carolyn Kuhl presiding.
Earlier this week, Meta and Snap requested that the cases be split into two separate trials — a matter Judge Kuhl has yet to rule on, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The case was selected as one of several bellwether cases for a trove of similar claims brought against social media players in recent years. It could intensify scrutiny of social media platforms at a time when many are already wary of the technology’s impact on young people. Nearly half of teens said they’re online almost constantly, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17.
In a separate landmark case earlier this year, Meta and YouTube were ordered to pay $6 million after a jury found they were liable for creating products that led to harmful and addictive behavior by young users.
