There’s something surreal about writing a book about how social media companies exploited and cashed in on my generation’s vulnerabilities, then seeing the chapters play out in a courtroom.
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google negligent for designing addictive platforms that harmed a young woman’s mental health. Kaley, now 20, started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 11 and has since suffered from anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts. The jury awarded $6 million in damages—$3 million compensatory and $3 million punitive—with Meta, which owns Instagram, responsible for 70 percent.
At first I felt vindicated, given the years of gaslighting. Growing up in the early 2010s, I thought I was going mad. Watching violent porn before having a first kiss, chatting to naked strangers on Omegle at sleepovers, marketing our developing bodies for Instagram—just a selection of my generation’s childhood memories. Girls like me who found it hard to cope with this new world were often told this was normal, that every generation feels anxious. So we withdrew inward, blamed and punished ourselves, decided there was something wrong with us.
