Attorneys general of several states have filed separate lawsuits against tech giants. These state lawsuits claim these tech giants internationally built their platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, and YouTube, to be addictive to teens and children without adequately warning the public of the physical and mental harm that would follow.
Many studies show that extended use of social media platforms, like Instagram and Facebook, can cause mental health problems, including anxiety, stress, and even depression, and can adversely affect one’s long-term well-being.
Now, tech giants are facing numerous social media addiction lawsuits claiming they knowingly designed social media algorithms to lure teens and children into harmful addictions.
If your kid has developed adverse harm due to social media addiction, contact a social media addiction attorney as soon as possible to learn your legal options.
The Rise of Social Media Addiction Lawsuits Against Tech Giants
As of April 2025, the Social media addiction litigation continues to gain momentum. The first bellwether trial is scheduled for November 25, 2025. A recent ruling allowed wrongful death and negligence allegations to proceed against giant tech companies, dismissing defenses based on the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Meanwhile, there are over 1,745 social media harm lawsuits. These social media harm lawsuits have been merged into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) No. 3047 in the federal court of the Northern District of California. Honorable Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers is overseeing the MDL. So far, there have been no jury verdicts or court-approved settlements in these legal actions. Approximately 70% of the lawsuits have been filed against Meta (the parent company of Instagram and Facebook). Also, TikTok Inc., Snap Inc., YouTube LLC, ByteDance Inc., Alphabet Inc., and Google LLC have been named defendants in some social media harm to teens lawsuits.
Among the lawsuits in the MDL No. 3047, a family in Illinois has sued Meta, Snap Inc., TikTok, and Google, claiming that their kid suffered adverse mental health problems because of the addictive nature of these apps.
Besides the MDL 3047, there are also other prominent lawsuits against tech companies, including:
- In December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys general filed separate antitrust cases against Facebook for anticompetitive conduct associated with social media dominance.
- In October 2023, 33 attorney generals filed a lawsuit against Meta. The lawsuit claims the company built and used addictive features to target teens, breaching consumer protection rights.
- In December 2023, Raul Torrez, New Mexico attorney general, filed a social media addiction lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms Inc., and their other subsidiaries. The lawsuit alleges the company didn’t adequately protect minors from sexual abuse, online solicitation, and human trafficking.
Key Claims in State Lawsuits Over Social Media’s Impact on Teens
Key claims in the master complaint of the MDL No. 3047 include:
- Targeting minors to increase engagement and profits while ignoring potential harm to their mental health.
- Intentionally building addictive features, like personalized algorithms and infinite scroll, to keep users hooked on social media platforms longer.
- Concealing or downplaying the potential danger of excessive social media use, especially for minors.
- Failure to adequately warn the public of the potential harm of excessive social media use
- Intentionally designing potentially harmful features like filters, lenses, and maps that can cause mental health problems and put minors in dangerous situations.
- Insufficient child protection measures lead minors to access age-inappropriate and harmful content.
- Parental control and age verification measures implemented by tech companies are ineffective, exposing minors to services or content that may harm their mental health.
These claims prove that social media companies must protect users, especially minors, from the dangers associated with heavy social media use.
How Social Media Platforms Allegedly Foster Addiction in Young Users
Behavioral addictions are things that one frequently engages in, no matter the negative consequences they might have on their lives. For example, social media use can become addictive if overuse begins adversely affecting one’s life.
When using social platforms, you can get dopamine via validation from positive post comments and “likes.” The regular stream of the brain’s “feel-good” chemicals, dopamine, can make social media users visit these platforms more often to continue feeling the positive sensation regularly.
Sadly, the regular exposure to carefully curated content and narratives often facilitates unrealistic standards of success and beauty, promoting feelings of discontent and inadequacy, particularly among children whose brains are still developing.
Consequently, these kids might develop eating disorders, body dysmorphia, contemplate self-harm, and depression. Further, social media addiction may exacerbate these issues, as children and other social media users become trapped in the cycle of seeking approval online and validation.
The social media harm lawsuits claim these platforms use these tactics to lure and addict children:
- Algorithms to show content that makes users stay longer on social media apps
- Use features like “hearts” and “likes” to create a craving for approval and validation, similar to gambling
- Showing personalized ads and content to keep users interested and engaged longer
- Leveraging the principle of reciprocity, making social media users feel obligated to respond to notifications and messages, keeping them returning for more.
- Taking advantage of features like infinite scroll. This feature enables users to endlessly swipe through content without clicking. Tech giants designed this feature to keep users looking at their phones longer than necessary.
Evidence of Harm: Studies Linking Social Media Use to Mental Health Issues
Many people, including kids and teenagers, use social media apps for entertainment, connection with others, and news. Around 50% of teenagers who participated in a recent survey say they use the internet regularly, and at least 90% use social media daily. Whereas most social media apps restrict the minimum age to 13, nearly 40% of kids between 8 and 12 use these apps.
Although social media use has many benefits, it can harm one’s well-being when used excessively. The advisory released by the U.S. Surgeon General in 2023 points out that social media use can hurt the mental health of kids and adolescents. The advisory shows that regular social media use can be linked to changes in parts of the brain associated with learning and emotions. Further, it can affect social behavior, impulse control, emotional control, and sensitivity to social rewards and punishments.
Another study also shows that children and teens who spend a lot of time on social media are likely to exhibit more symptoms of depression. Other factors, including social isolation, lack of sleep, and lack of healthy activities, could explain this interrelationship. However, researchers agree that excessive social media use is linked to unhealthy behaviors, including lack of sleep, negative impact on learning, increased social comparisons, and exposure to harmful content and cyberbullying, all of which could exacerbate depression symptoms.
Research findings by the American Psychological Association suggest that limiting social media use by 50% can significantly improve teen body image issues.
This evidence suggests a strong link between excessive social media use and mental health issues among minors, bolstering lawsuit allegations that social media contributes to mental health problems among young users.
Eligibility Criteria for Joining Social Media Addiction Lawsuits
To be eligible to file a social media harm lawsuit, prospective plaintiffs must establish the following conditions:
- Child or teenager addiction to social media platforms: First, potential claimants must prove that they or their teen child became addicted to one or more social media apps. The social media addiction must go beyond the level of everyday teen social media use.
- Teenager developed qualifying injuries: Secondly, prospective plaintiffs must prove that they or their teen child developed one of the qualifying physical or mental health issues associated with social media addiction, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, disruptive and impulse control, obsessive-compulsive, suicidal ideation, and self-harm.
If your child suffered physical and mental injuries due to social media addiction, an experienced social media harm attorney can help you determine if you qualify to file a lawsuit and seek justice.
Steps for Filing a Social Media Addiction Lawsuit
Filing a social media harm to teens lawsuit is daunting, particularly when dealing with related damages. Apart from filing a claim, you must prove how social media addiction caused mental and physical injuries and show that tech giants are liable for those injuries. A social media harm lawyer can help you understand the eligibility criteria, collect evidence, and file legal documentation to support your claims.
Here are the key steps to follow when filing a social media addiction lawsuit:
- Establish if you have grounds to sue tech companies for teen addiction to social media. To file a social media harm claim, you must prove the victim used social media excessively daily as an adolescent, child, or teen. Also, you must prove they experienced mental or physical injuries due to excessive social media use.
- Provide comprehensive evidence of mental health or physical injuries caused by social media addiction. To file a social media harm lawsuit, you must have elaborate proof to prove that the victim developed mental health issues because of social media use. You must have therapist notes, medical records, and medical expert testimonies to establish the mental health symptoms and diagnosis.
- Prove that minors are prone to social media-linked mental health and physical issues. One of the complex aspects of filing a social media harm case is proving a direct connection between excessive social media use and physical and mental health problems.
- Prove that tech companies are liable for teen social media addiction. To file a social media harm claim, you must be able to prove that tech companies’ failure to warn, regulate, and even mitigate possible injuries led to your child’s mental health problems. Evidence might include witness testimonies, social media companies’ documents, and scientific studies about the interrelationship between social media use and mental health issues.
- Hire an experienced social media addiction attorney. One of the key steps when suing tech companies for teen addiction is hiring a lawyer specializing in similar cases. Lawsuits against giant tech companies are highly complicated, and even a minor misstep can bar you from recovering the monetary compensation you deserve. Hiring a skilled personal injury lawyer can help you meet critical legal requirements to recover the financial compensation you and your child deserve.
Filing a social media harm claim requires extensive knowledge, resources, and time. A qualified social media lawyer can help you understand your legal options and guide you through the complicated legal process.
Potential Damages and Compensation in Social Media Addiction Cases
Suing tech companies for teen addiction to social media is a way to make these companies compensate parents and their children for harm suffered. It’s common for parents to incur massive debts and even quit work as they get care for their affected children. As a result, these parents and their children may be entitled to several types of damages and compensation, including:
- Compensation for current and future medical costs
- Costs for rehabilitation and therapy
- Reimbursements for additional expenses stemming from social media-associated health conditions
In addition, social media harm claims can help you recoup monetary compensation for the pain and suffering you have suffered after your child developed mental health disorders, physical injury, or even drug addiction caused by social media addiction.
Courts may also award punitive damages to claimants to punish tech giants and deter them from continuing to market harmful products.
But as social media addiction legal actions against tech companies like Meta, TikTok Inc., and Snap Inc. ramp up, estimating potential damages and compensation is still speculative because none of these lawsuits have reached a settlement or trial.
Legal Challenges Faced by Meta, TikTok, and Other Defendants
On October 15, 2024, a federal judge in California ruled that Meta must face legal actions by several U.S. states alleging it fueled physical and mental health issues among adolescents by making Instagram and Facebook addictive.
In addition, Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers, an Oakland-based U.S. District Judge, dismissed Meta’s plea to dismiss claims by states in two separate cases filed in 2023. One involved over 30 states, including New York and California, and Florida brought the other.
Judge Rodgers found that the states had enough evidence claiming that Meta made misleading statements, allowing the lawsuits to move forward. The same judge also dismissed motions by Meta, Alphabet, TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat to reject related personal injury claims by individual claimants. The other tech companies aren’t defendants in state lawsuits.
That ruling allows states and other complainants to gather more evidence and possibly go to trial. This isn’t the final ruling on the merits of those lawsuits.
Further, a fundamental legal battleground in these lawsuits is the interpretation and application of Section 230. The act has been a shield for tech companies for a long time, safeguarding them from liability for content users on their platforms. However, recent court rulings have started challenging the blanket immunity Section 230 grants these companies. In a significant ruling in October 2023, Judge Kuhl pronounced that social media platforms aren’t traditionally deemed products and that Section 230 or the First Amendment does not bar the plaintiffs’ claims. That ruling allows complainants to proceed with their allegations that social media use among teens results in addiction and mental health issues.
Expert Opinions on the Merits and Challenges of These Legal Actions
Legal actions over social media’s addictive nature and the dangers it causes to minors are ramping up. School districts, parents, and various state attorneys general have filed cases against social media companies alleging their algorithms are addictive by nature, causing physical and mental health issues to minors.
However, Professor of Law Stuart Benjamin says that the complainants’ legal strategies—such as suing under deceptive practices and acts, product liability, and public nuisance laws—will probably fail.
He adds that these are clever and interesting arguments for the complainants about why their allegations don’t compromise the First Amendment. However, he thinks these arguments will likely fail. That’s because tech companies will argue—maybe successfully—that their decisions on what to prioritize and what not to prioritize are based on the First Amendment.
In Moody vs. NetChoice, the Supreme Court ruled that editorial discretion over third-party content is speech safeguarded by the First Amendment.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote that to the extent social media apps create expressive content, the First Amendment protects them. “In curating certain feeds, these apps decide what third-party content to display and how to display it. They organize and prioritize, include and exclude—and by making millions of these decisions daily, they produce distinctive compilations of expressions,” Kagan adds.
She also says that the First Amendment protects decisions about what to include in social media feeds, just like it protects editorial decisions. Kagan further notes that the principle doesn’t change because curated content has moved from the physical to the digital world.
Benjamin adds that this ruling now poses a significant hurdle for the MDL and other legal actions seeking to hold tech companies responsible for harm their content caused. That means that any legal strategy the plaintiffs deploy will battle against the free speech defense.
Long-Term Implications of Social Media Addiction Litigation
A significant long-term implication of these lawsuits is the potential for new regulations targeting tech companies and their practices. As more people become aware of the problems related to social media addiction, state and federal lawmakers are now considering new laws. The potential regulations may vary from mandating stricter parental controls and age verification practices to enforcing robust data privacy protections for minors. Outcomes of current legal actions will ultimately shape the direction and content of such regulation.
Social media lawsuits also focus on product liability. Although social media apps aren’t traditional physical products, complainants argue they should be subjected to similar safety and consumer protection standards. If successful, this argument will expand tech companies’ legal obligations, mandating them to impose stricter safety features and give clear warnings about possible dangers.
Further, ongoing lawsuits also focus on social media algorithms’ role in shaping user experience on these platforms. Complainants argue that those algorithms, built to maximize engagement, are significant in promoting addiction and exposing young users to harmful content. The legal scrutiny in the design of these algorithms may result in new standards for accountability and transparency in how these systems work.
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