These moms believe beauty filters drove their teen daughters to social media addiction — and to their death
Two mothers who lost their teenage daughters to suicide say social media played a major role in their children’s struggles. Laurie Schott and Victoria Hinks believe platforms such as Instagram and TikTok can trap young users in cycles of comparison and insecurity driven by algorithms and filtered images.
Schott’s daughter, Annalee, died by suicide at age 18 in November 2020. After her death, Schott discovered journal entries describing how deeply her daughter felt pressured by online beauty standards.
Schott said that even when Annalee wasn’t actively searching for certain content, social media feeds continued delivering posts about beauty, appearance, and self-improvement.
“It kept telling her she wasn’t good enough,” Schott said. “So many data points were used to build an algorithm that seemed to sense she was struggling.”
In one journal entry from February 2020, Annalee wrote about sitting on her bathroom floor and feeling intense self-hatred while comparing herself to girls she saw online. Schott believes those comparisons made her daughter feel like she would never measure up.
After Annalee’s death, Schott reviewed her daughter’s social media accounts and found they were filled with posts related to beauty products, appearance comparisons, and even self-harm content.
“She became consumed by comparing herself to others,” Schott said. “Everything that showed up on her feed revolved around beauty. I always told her that what matters is who you are inside, but those platforms convinced her something was wrong with her.”
Schott is now among several parents who have been gathering outside the Los Angeles Superior Court during a closely watched case involving social media companies. A 20-year-old California woman, identified in court documents as KGM, is suing Meta and Google, arguing their platforms were intentionally designed to be addictive for young users. TikTok and Snapchat previously reached settlements in the case.
During testimony last week, KGM said that beautifying filters introduced on Instagram in 2017 contributed to severe body image issues. Meta has pushed back against claims that its platform alone caused her mental health problems, saying other factors in her life also played a role.
Another parent closely following the trial is Victoria Hinks of Marin County, California. Hinks lost her 16-year-old daughter Alexandra, known as Owl, in August 2024.
“She was such a beautiful girl,” Hinks said. “But social media pulled her down a dark path. The more time she spent on it, the more she seemed to change.”
Hinks said her family tried to limit their daughter’s exposure to social media. Owl was not allowed to create accounts until she turned 13, and her father — a software engineer — installed strict parental controls.
Even so, Hinks said her daughter found ways around those restrictions.
“She got past everything,” Hinks said.
Like KGM, who testified that being without her phone caused panic, Owl spent large amounts of time on apps like Instagram and TikTok. At one point, Hinks said the family even removed the door from her daughter’s room to make sure she wasn’t using her phone late at night.
“When we took her phone away at night, it felt like taking drugs from someone addicted,” Hinks said.
What the family didn’t realize at the time was the type of content Owl was seeing. After her death, Hinks reviewed her daughter’s phone and found posts about eating disorders and self-harm.
“It normalized depression and even glamorized suicide,” Hinks said. “There were things like the ‘skeleton bride diet’ and images of extremely thin girls. It absolutely affected her self-esteem.”
Hinks said her daughter began questioning her appearance in ways that seemed unusual for someone so young.
“She would ask things like, ‘Are my eyes too far apart?’” Hinks said. “And I kept wondering where those thoughts even came from.”
According to Hinks, social media filters also distorted her daughter’s sense of what she should look like. Owl frequently used beauty filters that dramatically changed her face.
“She believed she wasn’t pretty enough,” Hinks said. “Sometimes the filters made her look like she’d had plastic surgery — exaggerated lips, cheekbones, and eyes. She didn’t even look like herself.”
Schott and Hinks recently spent a rainy night outside the courthouse to secure seats when Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri testified about safety measures for young users.
Schott said the most difficult moment for her came when lawyers presented internal company communications suggesting executives were aware of potential harms to teenagers.
“What broke me was hearing those internal messages,” she said. “My daughter left journals describing exactly what she was feeling — the comparisons, the pain. Listening to that testimony felt like watching her story unfold again.”
Both mothers see the lawsuit as a step toward accountability.
“They built these systems to move fast and break things,” Schott said. “What they broke was my daughter — and many other children.”
Hinks agrees that even if the court rules against the tech companies, more action will be needed.
“This could be the beginning of accountability,” she said. “But it also needs to lead to stronger laws. Otherwise these companies may just treat it as the cost of doing business and keep going the same way.”
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