Social Media Wrongful Death Lawsuit Links Major Platforms to Child Suicides

Lawsuit alleges children’s social media addictions drove them to suicidal ideations due to intentional design features intended to hook kids.

A group of 19 people have joined together to file a lawsuit alleging that addictive features on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and other major platforms contributed to severe mental health problems that led their children to attempt suicide or take their own lives.

The complaint (PDF) was filed in the Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County on August 27. Defendants include Meta Platforms Inc., Instagram LLC, Facebook Payments Inc., Siculus Inc., Facebook Operations LLC, Snap Inc., ByteDance Ltd., ByteDance Inc., TikTok Inc., Google LLC, YouTube LLC, Discord Inc. and Roblox Corporation.

Plaintiffs allege their children became compulsively addicted to social media platforms, contributing to depression, anxiety, self-harm and other serious mental health problems that ultimately led to suicide attempts or deaths. In some cases, they say the children died with their smartphones in hand.

The lawsuit claims the companies deliberately incorporated addictive design features and targeted children to increase engagement, advertising revenue and profits, despite allegedly knowing their platforms could expose young users to serious psychological harm.

Social Media Addiction Concerns

Meta, Google and other social media companies face increasing criticism from families, states and school districts who say the platforms have incorporated intentionally addictive design features, such as infinite scrolling, notifications, autoplay and recommendation algorithms, to keep children engaged for longer periods of time.

Social media addiction has been linked to concerns about depression, anxiety, eating disorders, declining academic performance, behavioral problems, suicidal thoughts and self-harm among children and teenagers. School districts and states also allege youth social media addiction has driven up costs for counseling, tutoring and other public services.

Those concerns have led to thousands of social media addiction lawsuits filed in state and federal courts nationwide, involving claims brought by families, school districts and government officials against some of the largest technology companies in the world.

According to the new lawsuit, numerous children attempted or succeeded at ending their own lives after having anxiety, stress, or by being manipulated by others after developing social media addictions. Plaintiffs claim their addictions, and ultimate deaths, were a direct result of how the platforms were designed.

They allege that the companies used similar behavioral and neurobiological techniques pioneered by the cigarette and casino industries to keep children scrolling and the ad revenue rolling in.

“Defendants know children are in a developmental stage that leaves them particularly vulnerable to the addictive effects of such features and Defendants targeted them because of this. The defects in Defendants’ products vary by platform, but all exploit children and adolescents.”

– Sarah Harken et al. v Meta Platforms Inc. et al.

Social Media Addiction Child Suicides

One of those children was LilLee Wilkins, of Colorado, who began using social media at 10 years old in 2020 because her mom believed the platforms’ claims that they were safe for children. As she became more addicted, her mental health declined, according to the lawsuit.

Her mother started monitoring her daughter’s social media use and decided it needed to be restricted, but her daughter, normally well-behaved, began finding ways around the restrictions. Her mother even discovered videos of her daughter on the internet obviously taken while she was in class at school.

The lawsuit notes that LilLee’s mother was actually in a fight with artificial intelligence (AI) driven user recommendation tools and feed-based tools, non-stop notifications and friend recommendations, which even notified the child that she hadn’t been on in a while and urged her to post again to keep getting likes.

LilLee’s family came home from church on September 1, 2024, and found the 13-year-old had taken her own life. Her mother later found out that friends had tried to warn the school that LilLee had been posting troubling content that caused them concern.

Similar stories are repeated throughout the lawsuit involving the suicide deaths of Zen Marchand-Hill, who became addicted to Discord when she was only 12, spending up to 10 hours a day on the platform and avoiding or disabling parental controls her parents used to restrict access. She died of suicide on September 6, 2024, with her phone lying next to her in a way that suggested it had been in her hand when she died.

The lawsuit also includes claims for Sofie Igunbor, who took her own life in April 2023 at the age of 16 after becoming addicted to Roblox, TikTok and Discord. Additional children who attempted suicide, but survived, include Devin Msicka, Olivia Parsons, Wesley Konnerup, Tristan Russell, Grant Smith, Mia Perez, and several other children whose identities were kept anonymous.

Plaintiffs present claims of design defect, failure to warn, negligence – design, negligence – failure to warn, negligence, fraudulent concealment, negligence per se, wrongful death, survival action and loss of consortium and society. They seek both compensatory and punitive damages.

Social Media Addiction Lawsuits

The new complaint joins thousands of similar claims pending nationwide as courts begin moving social media addiction lawsuits toward additional trials and potential settlements.

One of the first scheduled trials against Meta was expected to begin in June, but the company reached an undisclosed settlement with the Breathitt County School District before opening statements.

In August, Meta also agreed to a proposed $17 billion settlement with a bipartisan coalition of 51 attorneys general. The agreement calls for Facebook and Instagram to adopt new protections for young users and provides a framework other social media companies may potentially join, which could affect the course of pending litigation.

Social media companies have also faced substantial jury verdicts. In March, a California jury ordered Meta and Google to pay $6 million to a woman who alleged she developed anxiety and depression after becoming addicted to social media as a minor. Days earlier, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay the state $375 million after finding the company liable for contributing to teen social media addiction and related mental health problems.

While the outcomes of those early trials and settlement efforts are not binding on other claims, they may provide both sides with important information about how juries value the alleged harms and whether broader resolutions may be possible.

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