Addiction is at the heart of the civil trial, which centres on allegations that a 20-year-old woman, identified as Kaley G.M., suffered severe mental harm after becoming addicted to social media as a young child. She started using YouTube at 6 and joined Instagram at 11, before moving on to Snapchat and TikTok two or three years later. The attorney for YouTube insisted that the video platform was neither intentionally addictive nor technically social media, but more a viewing venue like Netflix or traditional TV. In opening remarks this week, plaintiffs’ attorney Lanier told the jury that YouTube and Meta both engineer addiction in young people’s brains to gain users and profits. Social media firms face more than a thousand lawsuits accusing them of leading young users to become addicted to content and suffer from depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalisation, and even suicide.

Source: New Zealand Herald February 12, 2026 01:32 UTC