Social Media Platforms Breed 'Addictive,' 'Problematic' Use, Say Calif. Lawsuits
Soon after registering to use major social media platforms, California resident Brenton Hall began engaging in “addictive and problematic use” of the sites, alleges a Tuesday complaint (docket 23ST-cv-16691) in California Superior Court in Los Angeles. A nearly identical suit (23ST-cv-16699) was filed in the same court Tuesday by the same law firms -- Beasley Allen and Cutter Law -- on behalf of plaintiff Minayah Valentine-Boss. Cutter Law is also representing two California school districts in similar lawsuits against social media firms.
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Hall, an "adult male," and Valentine-Boss, 20, both heavy users of Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok and YouTube, said after registering to use social media platforms, they began engaging in “addictive and problematic use” of the platforms, and their interest in activities other than viewing and posting on social media platforms “progressively declined.”
Prompted by the “addictive design” of defendants’ platforms and “constant notifications” that the platforms pushed to Hall of Paducah, Kentucky, and Valentine-Boss of Queens, New York, “24 hours a day,” the plaintiffs developed a “compulsion to engage” with the platforms and began getting “less and less sleep,” the complaints said.
Both plaintiffs were minors when they began using the platforms, said the complaints. They subsequently developed injuries including “social media compulsion, self-harm, severe anxiety, and a reduced inclination or ability to sleep,” which could cause or contribute to additional disease, they said. Defendants designed their platforms to allow minor users to become addicted to and abuse their products without their parents’ consent, they said.
Defendants specifically designed their platforms to be “attractive nuisances” to underage users but “failed to exercise the ordinary care owed to underage business invitees to prevent the rampant, foreseeable, and deleterious impact” on minors that access their platforms, the complaints said.
Neither plaintiff was aware of the addictive and mentally harmful effects of the social media platforms when they began using them, said the complaints. The platforms’ companies not only failed to warn the plaintiffs of the dangers of “social media compulsion, sleep deprivation and problematic use” of the platforms, but they also “misrepresented the safety, utility, and non-addictive properties of their products.”
The complaint cited a December 2021 Senate Committee hearing in which the “head of Instagram” testified that Instagram doesn’t addict its users but said parent company Meta intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram to elicit “intermittent dopamine releases within users’ brains, a behavior modification scheme devised to surreptitiously ensnare users in an infinite loop of platform use and dopamine withdrawal.”
Plaintiffs assert claims of strict liability for design and manufacturing defects and failure to warn; negligence and negligent misrepresentation; product liability due to negligent design, negligent failure to warn and negligent manufacturing; and unjust enrichment. The lawsuits claim violations of unfair trade practices and consumer protection laws; breach of express warranty; breach of an implied warranty of merchantability; fitness for a particular purpose; intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress; negligent failure to recall or retrofit; medical monitoring; and timeless and tolling of statutes of limitations. Against Meta only, plaintiffs claim fraud, fraudulent concealment, and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Hall and Valentine-Boss seek damages to compensate users for physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, expenses for hospitalizations and medical treatments, lost earnings and loss of earning capacity. They also seek actual, statutory, exemplary, punitive and compensatory damages, plus attorney’s fees and legal costs.