Social Media Addiction Lawsuit Set for Trial in California State Court in November 2025

Case will be closely watched by hundreds of families pursuing social media lawsuits against Facebook, TikTok and other platforms, alleging that they were designed to foster unhealthy addictions in young users.

Later this year, a California jury will be the first to weigh the merits of a lawsuit claiming sites like Facebook and TikTok were intentionally designed to cause unhealthy social media addictions, resulting in severe anxiety, suicidal thoughts and mental health issues among young users.

Thousands of families throughout the U.S. are currently pursuing social media addiction lawsuits in state and federal courts nationwide, each raising similar allegations that the algorithms used by platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat are intended to maximize user engagement, even though there is evidence that it results in mental health damage for young adults and adolescents.

The creators of these sites, like Meta and Google, have been accused of knowingly exploiting the psychological vulnerabilities of teens and children, seeking to hold the companies accountable for the long-lasting harm they have caused. Some of the complaints include wrongful death lawsuits brought by parents, after their children took their own lives due to their social media addictions.

The first case is now expected to go before a California jury in November 2025, which will be closely followed to gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation.

Most of the social media addiction lawsuits have been filed in the federal court system, where more than 1,800 claims have been consolidated as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of California under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. However, others have been filed in California and various other state courts.

As part of the coordinated management of discovery and pretrial proceedings in the federal court system, Judge Rogers is scheduled to meet with lawyers involved in the cases tomorrow, July 18, 2025, to review the current status of both the federal and state court litigation, including ongoing efforts to coordinate resources and prevent duplicative discovery.

On July 11, plaintiffs and defendants submitted a joint statement and agenda (PDF), indicating that the first social media addiction lawsuit trial is set to begin in California state court on the week of November 24, following jury selections on November 19. A second trial is scheduled for March 9, 2026, and a third is set to begin on May 11, 2026.

Those cases are likely to begin before the first federal trials, which are currently expected to begin later in 2026.

Last month, Judge Rogers announced the creation of an initial bellwether pool of 11 social media addiction lawsuits in the federal court system, which are currently going through additional case-specific discovery. That bellwether pool includes six claims brought by school districts seeking reimbursement for costs associated with addressing the social media addiction side effects, while five of the claims involve individual injury lawsuits.

While the first federal social media addiction bellwether trial has not yet been scheduled, it is expected to begin some time in 2026. In the meantime, the court will continue to hold regular case management conferences to oversee the exchange of evidence and expert reports.

While none of the outcomes of the early bellwether trials in federal or state court will be binding on other families pursuing claims, they may have a substantial impact on any social media addiction settlement negotiations to resolve the litigation in the coming years.

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