'Too hard to be without’: Woman testifies against Instagram and YouTube

A 20-year-old woman testified in a Los Angeles court that heavy use of Instagram and YouTube during her childhood harmed her mental health, as a landmark social media addiction trial against Meta and Google gets underway.

The plaintiff, who goes by the name K.G.M., explained to jurors that her social media platform usage created continuous contact which resulted in her developing anxiety and depression and low self-esteem. 

The Los Angeles County Superior Court case is likely to take a legal precedent regarding social media platforms' responsibility for mental health problems that affect their young user base.

K.G.M. accessed Instagram when she turned nine and dedicated multiple hours to browsing continuous content streams while watching YouTube videos. She explained that her phone separation caused her to experience panic while she received notifications that made her feel excited.

“If I wasn’t on it, I felt like I was going to miss out on something,” she told the court. She also claimed that the social media filters contributed to body dysmorphia and insecurity about her appearance.

The lawsuit is part of a broader wave of social media addiction lawsuits that have been recently filed by more than 1,600 plaintiffs who include families and school districts. 

The plaintiffs claim that Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snap built their platforms with addictive mechanisms through their design of perpetual scrolling, their delivery of constant alerts and their inadequate systems for verifying user ages.

TikTok and Snap settled with K.G.M. before trial but remain defendants in related cases. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and Google, which owns YouTube, deny that their platforms are intentionally harmful.

Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said in earlier testimony that it is important to distinguish between clinical addiction and problematic use. YouTube Vice President of Engineering Cristos Goodro said the platform is not designed to maximise time spent.