Teen Social Media Addiction Attorneys

What Is a Social Media Addiction Lawsuit?

Our teen social media addiction attorneys at Anapol Weiss help individuals, families, and local governments hold social media tech giants accountable for the teens they have harmed, while protecting future users from the same fate in the process.

Social Media and Teen Addiction

Social media companies have designed their platforms to be addictive, putting profits over the safety of their users and encouraging addictive behaviors in our kids to maximize screen time. Social media companies like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat also know that social media addiction is causing serious mental health issues, especially in its youngest, most impressionable users.

Since the debut of MySpace twenty years ago, technology has become more portable, profitable, and addictive, and the use of social media among teenagers has skyrocketed. This has changed not only the way teens communicate with one another but also how they view themselves and how their brains develop.

A combination of factors make TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook dangerous, particularly for teens and young adults:

• Addictive features that leverage behavioral science to keep users' attention on the platform
• Engagement that feeds into the psychological need that naturally develops in teenagers' brains to seek social acceptance from peers
• Failures of the social media companies to implement reasonable safeguards to protect young users and support their parents' efforts to manage exposure to content and duration of use

Mental illness that steals away one's sense of self and normalcy, self-harm that leaves physical and emotional scars, and tragic and avoidable losses of young lives: these aren't hypothetical risks, but real occurrences that have happened to our clients and their loved ones. We have seen how social media addiction has torn families apart and done irreparable damage, and Anapol Weiss is fighting back on behalf of our clients through lawsuits against some of the biggest social media companies.

Social Media’s Designed Dangers

Despite knowing social media’s prevalence among teens, tech giants pushed addictive designs with defective safety features:

1. A lack of age-verification safeguards and parental controls of other kinds: Despite the concerns of underage exposure to social media, some of the most popular channels fail to employ adequate methods of verifying users' ages. This long list encompasses not only Facebook and Instagram but also Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. The social media sites are also missing other parental controls, such as limits on content exposure, that could make usage safer for minors.
2. Weaponizing Urgency: Building technology that compels young users to engage compulsively, time-sensitive, ephemeral, or fleeting features like stories and Snaps, involving timing-specific interactions.
3. Addictive Notifications: Social media features include inconsistent and unexpected reward systems, similar to those found in gambling. These features, along with push notifications sent throughout the day, disrupts school and sleep to redirect attention to social media and increase engagement.
4. Social Gamification: Social metrics to keep kids engaged include gamification of time spent on the app and their perceived popularity through Likes, Snapscores, Trophies, Charms, and Snapstreaks.
5. Beauty filters: Social media companies create and promote beauty filters even though they know filters can negatively impact users, setting unnatural appearance and unrealistic beauty standards, leading to body dysmorphia in children and teens.
6. Usage time restrictions and tracking: Moderation matters, but social media companies benefit from users spending more time on their channels, whether scrolling through paid ads and sponsored posts or engaging with others through comments, likes, and shares. It's no surprise, then, that these companies have failed to implement restrictions how long users are online, what time of day they can engage with the channel, and how frequently they use social media. Problematic usage problems can contribute to social media addiction and the harm it causes.

While TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat’s designs vary, the goal is the same: to consistently encourage users, including children and teens, to remain active and engaged on the social media channel day and night, for the longest feasible duration of time. For these companies, keeping teens' eyes glued to the screen means greater engagement and the better potential for ad revenue.

Evidence is building that these companies knew about the resulting harms to teens and children. In particular, the discovery of documents disclosed by former employees of these companies has revealed what social media companies knew about the dangers addiction to these channels posed to teens, when they knew it, and how they failed to take reasonable actions to address these risks.

Science Behind Addictive Dangers of Social Media

What makes social media so addictive is its capacity to affect human brain in ways similar to known subjects of addition, such as gambling activities and drugs. Every like that teens receive on their posts, every comment, and every notification causes a rush of dopamine in the brain, much like that produced by alcohol consumption or gambling. It's this dopamine release that makes social media use feel so pleasurable and, in turn, so difficult to stop.

Teen users become dependent on social media interactions to provide a dopamine high and can suffer psychological withdrawal effects like opioid addicts suffer when they are cut off from social media. Tolerance of social media interaction leads to dependence on social media, just like one would become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Teens are especially vulnerable to harm from the overuse of social media and striving to attain unrealistic life and beauty goals.

These fears aren't conjecture, but rather data obtained through credible research. Increasingly, researchers are publishing findings that connect social media use, and especially misuse or overuse, to numerous mental health concerns, including the development or worsening of conditions such as:

• Clinical anxiety
• Clinical depression
• Body dysmorphia, often in response to exposure to unrealistic ideals of beauty
• Eating disorders, including but not limited to anorexia
• Insomnia and other sleep disorders
• Self-harm actions
• Thoughts of suicide, which can lead to attempts and avoidable losses of life

While researchers' attention to this topic has helped us begin to understand the numerous and complex dangers of social media addiction, just recognizing the risks isn't enough. Social media companies need to address these problems, but so far, the biggest players in the the social media industry have neglected to impose the measures needed to impose much-need change.

Litigation involving Social Media Companies

After 80+ adolescent addiction lawsuits were filed against social media corporations in federal courts across the country, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) centralized all federal cases on October 6, 2022. This action created a large multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) in the Northern District of California involving lawsuits against social media companies filed by numerous parties, including:

• The parents and guardians of minor (under 18) victims
• Young adults who sustained harm as a result of social media addiction before they turned 18 years old
• Government entities, including local governments, dozens of individual states, and public boards of education throughout the country

Now all social media addiction lawsuits filed in federal court are under the supervision of U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to efficiently move the cases forward.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers selected two of Anapol Weiss’ attorneys -- Alexandra Walsh and Paige Boldt -- to serve as part of the leadership of the MDL’s Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee. Alexandra Walsh is the Co-Chair of the Discovery Committee focused on Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook. Alexandra Walsh and Paige Boldt are both actively involved in the MDL, working on the trial, expert, and discovery committees. Our teen social media addiction attorneys understand just how devastating the effects of social media addiction can be, and they genuinely care about the clients they represent.

Given the large numbers of cases across the country, there are ongoing consolidated litigations in both California’s state and federal court. Our firm has filed cases in both the federal MDL and state court litigations.

Legal Claims Against Social Media Companies

Each of the named social media companies has been accused of overlooking clear evidence about the harm young users experience — the companies should have noted the consequences of their defective products, but they failed to innovate responsibly or warn the public about the dangers of their platform.

Social media addiction is alarmingly prevalent, especially among teens and young adults. If you're facing the consequences, you need to know that you're far from alone, that help is available to overcome social media addiction, and that this situation isn't your fault.

The plaintiffs pursuing legal action aren't just seeking compensation for their own losses. They're advocating for real, powerful change, in the form of clearer and more pronounced warnings for young people and the general public about the prevalence of social media addition and the severe harm that it can cause to children and teens.

• Young adults, parents, and guardians want to hold Social Media companies accountable for their or their children’s suffering, including the physical, mental and economic harm caused by social media’s defective products.
• The legal actions filed by individual boards of education and local governments are what's known as "public nuisance" liability claims. These tort claims are used to hold defendants accountable for interfering with some type of right common to the public. In these claims, the school districts and local governments are seeking to recover money damages from the defendants that address the financial impact that social media addiction has had on their local communities. Specifically, these entities have faced additional costs associated with hiring mental health professionals to help children cope with their social media addiction.
• The dozens of states involved in this legal action are pursuing a form of claim known as "Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices," or UDAP, cases. The purpose of Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices cases is to hold defendants accountable for utilizing deceptive or misleading business practices. By taking legal action against such practices, UDAP claims can help protect the public, and particularly children and young adults in the case of social media addiction, from sustaining further harm.

Help For Suicide Ideation and Eating Disorders

Suicide isn't the answer. If you're dealing with suicidal thoughts, please know that help is available, regardless of the situation. We urge anyone experiencing suicidal ideation to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline right away for assistance. This resource, available by phone at 988 or online at 988lifeline.org, provides free support 24 hours a day, seven days a week for people experiencing thoughts of suicide.

If you need urgent help regarding eating disorders, call 1-800-931-2237 or visit NationalEatingDisorders.org to connect with the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA).

Contact an Experienced Lawyer at Anapol Weiss for a Free Consultation

Anapol Weiss' teen social media addiction attorneys are ready to fight for families and people against billion-dollar companies through the civil legal system.

Today, the devastating consequences of social media addiction are more widely publicized than ever. As a result, the failures of social media companies are increasingly falling under scrutiny. That's good news for young adults, parents, and families who are committed to holding companies liable for the full consequences they have caused through negligent practices that only facilitate social media addition.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by an addiction to social media, please feel comfortable to reach out to us. You can get answers from the attorneys at Anapol Weiss. Call our firm for a free, confidential consultation. There is no obligation when you contact us. We will explain your legal rights and the next steps toward holding the social media companies responsible.