We know her only as Kaley—and by the initials KGM. She began watching YouTube when she was 6 years old, started using Instagram at 11, then Snapchat at 13 and TikTok at 14. Social media “changed the course of her childhood,” said her lawyer, Joseph VanZandt. Now 20, Kaley claims that a decade-long addiction to social media led to her anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and body dysmorphia.
The allegations are at the heart of a huge trial that began three weeks ago in Los Angeles. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, began testifying on Wednesday. When the testimony is over, jurors will be asked to resolve whether Kaley’s addiction was instigated by the content she viewed or by the way that content was delivered—meaning the design elements of the social media platforms, such as infinite scroll, rapid feedback with “likes,” and autoplay, or queueing up videos in succession.
The trial is widely seen as a bellwether case for a torrent of litigation against TikTok, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, and Google’s YouTube, including one case that has over 2,000 plaintiffs—among them 1,200 school districts. The plaintiffs’ lawyers, including Kaley’s, have compared “social media addiction” to drug and gambling addictions.
