Meta Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Instagram Is Harmful, Intentionally Addictive to Children

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges Meta Platforms, Inc. has intentionally designed Instagram to be addictive for young users despite evidence that the social media app can cause significant physical and mental harm to minors.

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The 87-page lawsuit says that Meta, in order to maximize profits from youth-targeted advertising, has developed a set of “psychologically manipulative” Instagram features built to create an “uncontrollable desire” in young users to remain on the app “all day and every day.”

According to the case, the defendant knows that excessive and compulsive social media use can lead to a cascade of mental health issues in children—including depression, body dysmorphia, anxiety, suicidal ideation, self-harm, insomnia and eating disorders. However, rather than warn kids and their parents about the risks associated with Instagram, Meta has knowingly concealed internal data exposing the harmful impacts of its addictive features, issued misleading statements about their effect on young users and publicly feigned concern about issues like parental controls and limiting youth access, the complaint contends.

The suit explains that Meta maximizes youth engagement on Instagram by exploiting the desires and vulnerabilities of developing brains, particularly through algorithmically driven recommendations, an “infinite scroll” format that lets users view what appears to be a never-ending feed of content, and functions that allow for social comparisons, such as “Likes,” “Live” and “Reels.” Other features designed to generate addictive behavior include push notifications that continually draw users back to the app and ephemeral content, e.g., “Stories” that disappear after a short period and compel young users to check the app more frequently to avoid missing out on what others are sharing, the filing says.

In a 2017 interview, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, openly acknowledged that the company’s apps are intentionally designed to provide users with random “dopamine hit[s],” the filing relays. Citing a 2018 report from Dr. Mark D. Griffiths, a professor of behavioral addiction at Nottingham Trent University, the lawsuit claims that the anticipation of these physiological, psychological and social rewards is one of the main reasons why social media users repeatedly check their screens.

“Habitual social media users never know if their next message or notification will be the one that makes them feel really good,” Dr. Griffiths wrote. “In short, random rewards keep individuals responding for longer and has been found in other activities such as the playing of slot machines and video games.”

The Instagram lawsuit asserts that Meta harvests young users’ data to create feeds tailored to their individual preferences.

“Most disturbingly, as part of this personalization process, Meta’s recommendation algorithms also periodically present young users with psychologically and emotionally gripping content,” the case says, noting that posts that provoke an intense reaction are shown to keep young users on the app longer. This type of content often relates to eating disorders, violence, negative self-perception, body image issues or bullying, the complaint says.

The lawsuit further alleges that Meta’s algorithms disproportionately push onto young girls content it internally categorizes as “Negative Appearance Comparison” or “NAC” content, which are posts that tend to cause users to feel worse about their appearance. Internal research from Meta shows that the defendant is well aware that repeated exposure to NAC content tends to exacerbate physical and psychological problems for young users and that this demographic is particularly susceptible to becoming “addicted to things that make them feel bad,” the case relays.

The case contends the company has taken no steps to effectively eliminate, or even reduce, the “staggering” amount of NAC content pushed onto young Instagram users, quoting from one Meta employee that doing so comes with a “clear engagement cost.”

“Supplying harmful products to children is unlawful in every jurisdiction in this country, under both state and federal law and basic principles of products liability,” the suit reads. “And yet, that is what Meta does every hour of every day of every year.”

The lawsuit looks to represent any minors in the United States who use or have used Instagram during the applicable statute of limitations period.

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