Product Liability
Social Media Addiction Lawsuit
Families are suing Meta (Instagram and Facebook), TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube over platform designs built to keep children scrolling. If your child developed depression, an eating disorder, self-harm behavior, or died by suicide after compulsive social media use, Segal Law Firm will review your claim at no cost.
A social media addiction lawsuit is a product liability claim. It argues that Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube were engineered, deliberately, to maximize the time young users spend on them, and that the companies knew the resulting compulsive use was harming children's mental health.
These are not claims about what other users posted. They target the products themselves: infinite scroll that removes any natural stopping point, autoplay that starts the next video before a child can decide to stop, variable-reward notification schedules borrowed from slot-machine design, streaks that punish a day away, appearance-altering filters aimed at teenage girls, and recommendation engines that learn what keeps a specific child watching, including content about self-harm, suicide, and disordered eating.
Thousands of individual personal injury and wrongful death cases are now consolidated in federal multidistrict litigation, MDL 3047, in the Northern District of California, with a parallel coordinated proceeding in California state court. Separately, dozens of state attorneys general and hundreds of school districts have sued the same companies. In 2025 the first adolescent addiction case reached a jury and produced a liability finding, the strongest signal yet that these claims can succeed.
Do you have a social media addiction case?
Most claims we accept share the following facts. You do not need all of them to call us, and you do not need to know which platform caused the most harm.
- The user began regular use of one or more platforms as a minor (generally under 18).
- Use was heavy or compulsive over a sustained period, often two or more hours a day.
- A mental-health injury was diagnosed or treated, or a suicide attempt or death occurred.
- There is documentation: therapy notes, hospital records, school records, or a pediatrician's chart.
- The harm can be tied in time to the period of heavy platform use.
How platform design becomes a legal defect
New York product liability law recognizes three theories: design defect, manufacturing defect, and failure to warn. Two of them fit these cases directly. The design-defect theory asks whether a safer alternative design was available, chronological feeds instead of engagement-optimized ones, default time limits for minors, real age verification, no autoplay for children, and whether the risks of the chosen design outweighed its benefits. The failure-to-warn theory asks whether the companies told parents and teens what their own internal research showed about compulsive use and mental-health harm.
Platforms argue that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes them because the harm came from third-party content. Courts overseeing MDL 3047 have allowed substantial portions of the design-based claims to proceed, drawing a line between what users posted, which is protected, and how the company built the machine that decided what a 13-year-old saw at 2 a.m., which is not automatically protected.
Evidence that makes these cases work
The single biggest difference between a strong claim and a weak one is documentation. Take these steps now, before you speak with any platform or insurer.
Preserve the accounts and the device
Do not delete accounts, posts, or messages. Turn on Screen Time or Digital Wellbeing history and download the platform's data archive (Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat all offer one).
Gather treatment records
Therapy and psychiatry notes, hospital and ER records, diagnoses, medication history, and any residential or IOP/PHP program paperwork.
Collect school and family documentation
Report cards showing decline, counselor referrals, IEP or 504 records, attendance history, and a written timeline from parents.
Write down the timeline early
When use started, which apps, how many hours, when symptoms appeared, and when treatment began. Contemporaneous notes are persuasive evidence.
Why families choose Segal Law Firm
Complex product-liability experience
These are design-defect and failure-to-warn cases against product manufacturers. That is the same legal architecture we use in our product liability practice, applied to software.
Medical and expert networks
Adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, addiction specialists, and human-factors experts who can connect platform design to a specific child's injury.
We do the document work
Internal research, engagement metrics, and A/B test records are central to these cases. We know how to press for them and how to read them.
Families are handled with care
Many of these cases involve a child's death or hospitalization. Communication is private, patient, and handled by an attorney, not a call center.
Related practice areas
- Product Liability — the framework these claims are built on.
- Child Injuries — claims brought on behalf of minors.
- Catastrophic Injury — life-altering harm and wrongful death.
- Personal Injury — general negligence claims in New York.
Do not delete the accounts.
Usage history, messages, and the platform's own data archive are the backbone of these claims. Preserve everything and call before you close an account.
In crisis right now?
Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24 hours a day. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. Legal claims can wait; safety cannot.
The defendants
Which platforms are named in these lawsuits
Most families used several apps. You do not need to identify one platform as the cause; claims are commonly brought against multiple defendants at once.
Instagram & Facebook (Meta)
Internal Meta research, disclosed by whistleblower Frances Haugen, reportedly showed the company knew Instagram worsened body-image problems for a meaningful share of teen girls. Claims focus on infinite scroll, appearance-altering filters, engagement-optimized recommendations, and weak age verification.
TikTok (ByteDance)
The For You algorithm is designed to hold attention for as long as possible. Suits allege the feed pushes self-harm, disordered-eating, and dangerous-challenge content to minors, and that design choices such as autoplay and streaks make disengaging difficult.
Snapchat (Snap Inc.)
Claims involve Snapstreaks that pressure daily use, disappearing messages that hide sextortion and drug sales from parents, speed filters, and geolocation features that expose minors to strangers.
YouTube (Google)
Autoplay and the recommendation engine are alleged to create compulsive viewing loops in children, with algorithmic amplification of harmful content and inadequate parental controls.
Roblox, Discord & gaming platforms
Related filings raise compulsive-use design, in-app purchase manipulation, and inadequate protection of minors from adult contact and grooming.
The harm
Injuries these claims cover
Courts want a diagnosed, documented injury, not general unhappiness. These are the conditions most often at the center of a social media addiction case.
Suicide & attempted suicide
Wrongful death and survival claims brought by families after a child's death connected to prolonged, algorithm-driven platform use.
Self-harm
Cutting and other self-injury after repeated exposure to self-harm content served by recommendation feeds.
Eating disorders
Anorexia, bulimia, and body dysmorphia associated with appearance filters and pro-eating-disorder content loops.
Depression & anxiety
Clinically diagnosed major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder requiring treatment.
Sleep deprivation
Chronic sleep loss from nighttime use, which compounds mood disorders and academic decline.
Compulsive use disorder
Documented inability to stop using despite harm, withdrawal symptoms, escalating time-on-app, and failed attempts to quit.
Sextortion & exploitation
Harm arising from adult contact, grooming, or coerced imagery facilitated by platform design and weak age gating.
Inpatient & residential treatment
Hospitalization, partial-hospitalization programs, and residential mental-health placement, often the largest economic damages in these cases.
Where the litigation stands
Social media lawsuit timeline
- 2021
Whistleblower disclosures publish internal Meta research on Instagram's effect on teen mental health, triggering congressional hearings.
- 2022
The first individual personal injury and wrongful death suits are filed against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google.
- 2023
The federal cases are centralized as MDL 3047 in the Northern District of California; dozens of state attorneys general and hundreds of school districts file their own actions.
- 2024
Courts allow core design-defect and negligence claims to proceed past Section 230 and First Amendment challenges; discovery into internal engagement research expands.
- 2025
The first adolescent addiction case reaches a jury in California and returns a liability finding against platform defendants, a landmark result for these claims.
- Now
Bellwether trials continue and new individual cases are still being filed and reviewed. Families with documented injuries should have their claims evaluated.
What happens next
How a claim moves forward
- 1. Free review. You speak with an attorney about your child's platform use, diagnoses, and treatment. Nothing is owed and nothing is filed yet.
- 2. Records collection. We obtain medical, school, and platform data with your authorization and build the usage-to-injury timeline.
- 3. Filing. The case is filed and, where appropriate, transferred into MDL 3047 or the coordinated state proceeding.
- 4. Discovery. Plaintiff fact sheets, expert review by adolescent mental-health specialists, and access to the defendants' internal research.
- 5. Resolution. Bellwether trial outcomes drive settlement values. Most individual cases resolve without the family going to trial.
Filing deadlines in New York
New York generally allows three years from the date of injury for a personal injury claim and two years from the date of death for wrongful death. For a minor, the clock is usually tolled until the child's 18th birthday, which is why claims involving harm that began years ago may still be viable.
Other states apply different periods and different discovery rules, and claims tied to federal proceedings can carry their own filing requirements. The only reliable way to know your deadline is to have a lawyer look at your dates. A missed deadline ends a case regardless of how strong the facts are.
Check my deadlineFrequently asked
Social media addiction lawsuit questions
- Yes. Thousands of personal injury and wrongful death claims have been filed against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google. They are consolidated in federal multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California (In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, MDL 3047) and in a coordinated proceeding in California state court, alongside separate suits brought by dozens of state attorneys general and hundreds of school districts.
- The personal injury claims are individual lawsuits, not a class action. They are grouped into an MDL for pretrial efficiency, but each family's damages are evaluated on their own facts, so a severe case is not averaged down against a mild one. Some economic-harm and school-district claims are structured differently.
- Generally, a young person who began heavy use of one or more platforms as a minor and later developed a diagnosed mental-health injury, or a parent bringing a claim on behalf of a minor child or on behalf of a child who died. Young adults who started as minors may also qualify.
- Past and future mental-health treatment costs, hospitalization and residential-program costs, medication, a parent's lost income from caregiving, loss of the child's future earning capacity, pain and suffering, and, in death cases, wrongful death and survival damages. Punitive damages are sought where the evidence shows a company knew of the harm and continued anyway.
- No global settlement values have been announced, and any number you see quoted online is speculation. Value will turn on the severity of the injury, the strength of the treatment record, and the outcome of bellwether trials. Be skeptical of any firm promising a specific figure.
- A California jury's finding of liability in an adolescent social media addiction trial was the first of its kind and signaled that these claims can reach a jury and succeed. Verdicts like these typically increase filing volume and reshape settlement posture, but each case still stands on its own record.
- Section 230 shields platforms from liability for content posted by third parties. These lawsuits are pleaded around that shield by targeting the companies' own design choices, infinite scroll, autoplay, streaks, engagement-optimized recommendation, weak age verification, as defective product features. Courts overseeing the MDL have allowed significant portions of these design-defect and negligence claims to move forward.
- In New York the general personal injury deadline is three years, and wrongful death is generally two years from the date of death. Critically, for a minor the clock is usually tolled (paused) until the child turns 18. Deadlines vary by state and by the facts, so confirm yours with an attorney rather than assuming.
- No. Segal Law Firm is based in New York and serves Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Long Island, Staten Island, and Westchester County, and we review these cases for families nationwide, associating with local counsel where required.
- Most cases resolve without a public trial, and minors' identities are typically protected by initials and protective orders. If testimony is needed, it is usually a deposition, prepared for carefully and often taken remotely.
- Nothing upfront. We work on contingency and advance case costs. You owe a fee only if we recover for you.
- No. Deleted accounts can often be recovered through the platform's own data-retention systems and through discovery. Tell us what happened, do not delete anything further, and we will work with what exists.
Contact
Talk to a lawyer about your child's case
Free and confidential. We review social media addiction claims for families in New York and nationwide. No fee unless we win.