A major court ruling says that social media apps are intentionally addictive

A court ruling with potentially massive implications found that social media apps are intentionally designed to be addictive and harmful to the mental health of teenagers.

Now a 20-year-old woman has filed a lawsuit Meta and YouTube the owner Google A jury has awarded him $6 million in damages for harming his mental health as a child — and that’s likely to be just the beginning…

Academic studies Social media use has long been associated with mental health problems in children and adolescents. Apps like Instagram have been found to promote unrealistic body images; social media in general can give teenagers the impression that everyone else is living amazing lives when they’re missing out; cyberbullying is common in apps used by teenagers; and apps sometimes post self-harming content to teen users’ feeds.

There are a number of teen suicides linked to social media:

What’s worse is that social networks are not only fully aware of the harm that can be done, but also design their apps to be intentionally addictive.

Many lawsuits have been filed and BBC News reports that a verdict has been issued in one of the most noisy cases.

A jury in Los Angeles has handed down an unprecedented victory to a young woman who sued Meta and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media. Jurors found that Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, which owns YouTube, intentionally set up addictive social media platforms that harmed the 20-year-old’s mental health. The woman, known only as Kaley, was awarded $6m (£4.5m) in damages.

The jury also ruled that the two companies acted intentionally.

The jury (…) found that Meta and Google “acted with malice, oppression or fraud” in the way the companies operated their platforms.

Both companies said they intend to appeal the verdict. While Meta argued that adolescent mental health is too complex to be linked to specific apps, Google said that YouTube is not a social media platform.

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According to the BBC, this is an important decision that will have far-reaching consequences. Many similar claims are working their way through the court system.

Australia has already banned under-16s from using social media platforms, and Spain is following suit. France, Portugal, and Brazil are drafting legislation, and several other countries are actively considering similar legislation.

The author of the photo Nate Neilson about Open it