Thousands of lawsuits against social media companies brought by individuals, school districts, and other government entities are making their way through the courts. The cases generally allege that the companies caused harm to youth by designing their social media platforms to foster compulsive use and failing to adequately warn users about the potential harms of their platforms.
The first of these cases brought by an individual plaintiff was decided by a jury in March 2026—a bellwether case that will inform decision-making in future cases (K. G. M. v. Meta Platforms, Inc.). The plaintiff, identified by her initials, K.G.M., claimed that Meta and Google had used the “engineering of addiction” to design their apps in ways that encouraged users, particularly young users, to remain on the platforms for extended periods. K.G.M. claimed that she began using social media compulsively as a child and that this problematic social media use contributed to depression, anxiety, self-harm, and damage to her relationships. A jury agreed and awarded her $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Social media companies ByteDance (TikTok) and Snap (Snapchat) are also defendants in the broader set of lawsuits, but each settled with K.G.M. before her case went to trial.
Historically, efforts to hold social media companies liable for harms associated with their platforms have faced a significant legal obstacle: Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act shields tech companies from liability for harms caused by user-generated content. In this case, however, the legal claims were based not on the content posted on the platforms but rather on the platform design. The lawsuit focused on design features such as infinite scrolling, video autoplay, variable reinforcement, constant push notifications, and beauty filters. K.G.M.’s lawyer likened these features to a “digital casino” designed to keep users on the social media platforms, arguing that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to their effects.
One challenging aspect of this litigation is establishing a causal relationship between the alleged negligence—the platforms’ design choices—and the mental health harms claimed by plaintiffs. To be successful, a plaintiff must show both that a platform’s design feature can contribute to adverse mental health outcomes and that it did so in the plaintiff’s individual case. The social media companies argue that adolescent mental health is complex and question whether any particular mental health outcome can be causally linked to the design of a social media platform.
Reports from APA (Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence, 2023 (PDF, 431KB)opens in new window) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Galea, S., et al. [Eds.], Social Media and Adolescent Health, 2024opens in new window) note that this causation question is complex. Psychological studies have found that social media is associated with a variety of negative effects, including anxiety, depression, and attention problems. Yet social media is ubiquitous, and links between mental health and social media use are likely bidirectional, complicating causal conclusions. In addition, individual differences make some users more susceptible than others to the relevant design features and to developing patterns of problematic use. Research also shows that social media can have positive effects on mental health, including healthy socialization and self-expression.
Research that more precisely identifies the effects of specific design features on mental health outcomes and examines how individual differences might moderate those effects will be critical in informing the ongoing litigation and any other regulatory or voluntary reforms. Longitudinal, experimental, and quasi-experimental studies will be particularly important in determining which features give rise to problematic use, under what conditions, and for which young people.
