Woman Sues , YouTube: ‘Too Hard to Be Without It’

A California jury on Thursday heard testimony from the young woman at the center of a high-profile trial examining whether social media is designed to be addictive for children. Now 20, the plaintiff, identified as Kaley G.M., described how starting YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at 9 led to years of obsessive use, isolation, and serious mental health struggles, including anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia.

“If I wasn’t on it, I felt like I was going to miss out on something,” she recalled, describing a day as a teenager when she spent 16 hours on Instagram and panicked when her phone was taken away. She said she often bypassed parental controls, snuck out at night to access her phone, and still checks social media while working at Walmart. “It’s too hard to be without it,” she said.

Her former therapist also testified, blaming social media for contributing to her patient’s mental health challenges, according to Reuters.

The lawsuit, filed against Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, is the first of more than 3,000 similar cases to reach trial. Legal experts say it could set a benchmark for whether social media companies can be held responsible not for user content, but for allegedly addictive features like push notifications and “like” counts. TikTok and Snapchat settled before trial.

Meta has contested the claims. Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified that the platform is not “clinically” addictive, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company aims to help users rather than trap them and no longer rewards teams for maximizing time spent on its apps. Zuckerberg was also questioned about how much of his $231 billion fortune is earmarked to help people harmed by social media—a question he did not answer, according to the New York Post.

The case is being closely watched as it could influence how the law treats social media companies in the future.

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