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A Los Angeles jury has sided with a young woman known as Kaley or KGM in a landmark case, ruling that the \u201caddictive design\u201d of Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube helped fuel her serious mental health problems. The closely watched bellwether case against the platforms\u2019 parents, Alphabet\u2019s \u200cGoogle and Meta, could set a precedent in thousands of similar lawsuits and force Silicon Valley to rethink the features that keep users endlessly scrolling.<\/p>\n
After more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days\u2014including testimony from KGM as well as from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders\u2014California jurors decided Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design or operation of their platforms, and awarded the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman who says her social media addiction exacerbated her mental health struggles, $3 million in damages.<\/p>\n
The multimillion-dollar verdict will grow, as the jury will decide whether the companies acted with malice or fraud. They will hear new evidence shortly and head back into the deliberation room to decide on punitive damages. Meta and Google-owned YouTube were the two remaining defendants in the case after TikTok and Snap each settled before the trial began.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,\u201d a Meta spokesperson said when reached for comment Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for YouTube parent company Google said the company also disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal. \u201cThis case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The decision also puts legal weight behind a term Big Tech has spent years trying to dismiss: tech addiction. As I reported in Fortune this week, and for the upcoming issue of Fortune Magazine, the intense debate about how harmfully addictive modern tech can be has escalated lately thanks to a slew of landmark legal cases against Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and Snap.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At a dedicated tech addiction rehab center outside of Seattle\u2014one of very few such clinics in the U.S. or anywhere in the world\u2014I met client Sarah Hill. The 21-year-old\u2019s parents had flown her from Alabama to reSTART, a residential treatment program for digital overuse that treats compulsive tech use as a danger on par with alcohol or drugs. At the program, which costs around $1,000 a day, clients must abstain from smartphones, gaming, social media, and other technologies\u2014often for months, and undergo intensive therapy sessions.<\/p>\n
Hill told me that the situation got to a crisis point when she had spent so many nights holed up in her room talking to an AI chatbot on her phone that she fell behind in her college classes, lied to her parents, and ultimately failed out. \u201cThe last thing I saw was my mom resting her elbows on the counter and just crying,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThat was the worst thing I ever saw.\u201d On her first tech-free day at reSTART, Hill told me, she lay down on her bed and cried.<\/p>\n
Hill is far from alone. reSTART cofounder Cosette Rae says she has treated around a thousand clients since opening the center nearly two decades ago, and spoken with many thousands more. She and cofounder Hilarie Cash launched reSTART in 2009 because they realized that there was nowhere else for those struggling with problematic tech use to go.<\/p>\n
Rae\u2019s patients aren\u2019t simply dealing with bad habits, she says. They\u2019re struggling with the fact that you can\u2019t quit tech the way you might quit a substance. \u201cWhen it comes to technology, it\u2019s everywhere,\u201d she says. \u201cSo you\u2019re constantly being in front of it and having to say no.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scientists like Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, who testified on behalf of the plaintiff in the Meta and YouTube case, say that\u2019s not just anecdotal. Compulsive scrolling and gaming tap the same reward circuitry as drugs, with quick dopamine hits training users to seek the next small \u201cwin.\u201d Over time, repeated bursts of stimulation can desensitize those pathways and weaken the prefrontal cortex, which governs planning and self-control, making it harder to cut back even as school, work, or relationships suffer. Brain imaging studies of people with internet gaming or social media disorders show changes similar to those seen in gambling addiction.<\/p>\n
Meta and YouTube have long argued that there\u2019s no clear scientific proof their products cause that harm. Tech addiction isn\u2019t recognized as a formal diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; only \u201cinternet gaming disorder\u201d appears as a condition warranting more study. Some researchers worry that calling heavy use \u201caddiction\u201d can make people feel more helpless, not less.<\/p>\n
But critics have long said that these products are designed to foster addiction. \u201cThese companies are in the business of attention,\u201d the former tech investor and author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, Roger McNamee, told me, weeks before today\u2019s verdict. \u201cOnce they had attention, they were in the business of controlling the choices available to people in order to influence their behavior in ways that were profitable for the platform. That culture and that business model were guaranteed to produce lots of harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, some watching the Los Angeles and other lawsuits move forward have anticipated a \u201cBig Tobacco moment\u201d\u2014a reference to the 1990s lawsuits against tobacco companies that proved they were aware of the addictive nature of nicotine and the health dangers of smoking, and led to massive damages paid.<\/p>\n
NYU professor and podcaster Scott Galloway, also speaking before the verdict, was even more blunt about what the attention race has meant for young people. \u201cI don\u2019t think [Big Tech] set out in their business plans to depress global youth,\u201d he says. \u201cI think their algorithms discovered that rage, self-esteem, and funny cat videos just keep people online.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Hill, the stakes are personal, not theoretical. She has now transitioned to an apartment owned by reSTART and carries a basic \u201cdumb\u201d phone with no apps or games. She still catches herself slipping into old patterns\u2014like mindlessly scrolling through new screen backgrounds\u2014but says something fundamental has shifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter making so many mistakes, I\u2019m finally putting a foot down and saying, \u2018I want to get out of this endless cycle,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI need to do something to better myself and my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article used reporting from the Associated Press. <\/p>\n
#court #ruled #tech #addiction #realand #dangerous #Meta #YouTubes #Big #Tobacco #moment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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