Snapchat Settlement Reached in Social Media Addiction Lawsuit

Jury selection is set to begin January 27 in California state court for the first social media addiction trial against multiple platforms, despite Snap Inc. being removed from the case.

The owners of Snapchat have reached a settlement agreement that removes them as a defendant in the first teen social media addiction lawsuit set to go before a jury, which is still expected to begin early next month in California, involving claims against various different platforms.

The jury selection process is scheduled to get underway this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, for a bellwether trial involving a lawsuit being pursued by a 19-year-old woman, identified as K.G.M., who alleges that Snap Inc. and other social media companies designed their platforms with algorithms intended to maximize engagement, despite knowing such features could lead to addiction and mental health harms.

The claim is one of many against companies like Snap Inc., Meta, ByteDance and Google who face more than 2,200 social media addiction lawsuits filed in courts nationwide. Those cases, brought by families, school districts and state governments, allege the platforms are deliberately designed to maximize engagement through data-driven algorithms that encourage compulsive use among children and teens. 

While most claims have been brought by individuals and families seeking compensation for harms such as anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, school districts and state governments are also pursuing claims against the companies, seeking reimbursement for the rising costs of addressing a youth mental health crisis fueled by social media addiction. These expenses include counseling programs, crisis intervention efforts and expanded special education.

Attorneys announced the Snapchat settlement agreement on January 20, following a status conference in the litigation. However, no details on the specific terms or monetary amounts of the settlement have been released. Additionally, the settlement is only, at this time, for the K.G.M. lawsuit. Snap Inc. remains a defendant in numerous other claims.

Although this trial is the first social media addiction claim to go to trial, most of the cases have been filed at the federal level, and have been centralized as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of California under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for pretrial proceedings and coordinated discovery.

Judge Rogers has scheduled the first federal teen social media addiction lawsuit bellwether trials to begin in the summer of 2026, involving claims by school districts that say they have had to pay for mental health treatment, tutoring and other expenses to address the social media addiction epidemic.

These bellwether trials are meant to serve as early test cases which will give the parties an opportunity to see how juries are likely to digest evidence and testimony that would be repeated in most cases if they went to trial.

While the results of any of these bellwether trials will not be binding on other claims, they will be closely watched to see how juries respond to the strength and weaknesses of arguments on both sides.

Following these early cases, if the parties are unable to reach a settlement agreement, thousands of claims could be remanded back to their originating district for individual trial dates.

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