Two court verdicts this week spotlight the risks for teens from using social media — focusing on not just the content but the design of the platforms.
On Wednesday a California jury held Google and Meta responsible for depression and anxiety in a woman who used social media as a child. The jury concluded the tools — including Instagram and YouTube — were deliberately built to be addictive.
Another jury in New Mexico said Tuesday that Meta violates state laws and harms children's safety and mental health with its platforms including Facebook and Instagram. The companies issued statements saying they disagree with the verdicts and are appealing them.
But scientists have drawn similar conclusions in recent research. They've identified specific design elements that encourage compulsive use and are especially difficult for growing brains to resist. And they've pinpointed what elements companies could change to make the social media design that is safer for children.
Is social media "addictive?"
Early research on social media's impacts on teen mental health focused mostly on how much time they spent on these platforms, with some studies finding more time being linked with worse mental health symptoms, particularly depression.
But in recent years, researchers have homed in specifically on behaviors that indicate compulsive use of social media. In a recent study researchers found teens had habits that "mirror symptoms of addiction to substances," such as withdrawal and impaired functioning, says study author Dr. Jason Nagata, a leading researcher on teen use of digital media.
Researchers asked 11- and 12-year-olds to respond to statements like: "I've tried to use my social media apps less but I can't," and "I've become stressed or upset when I'm not allowed to use my social media apps" on a scale of one (never) to six (very often).
Nagata, a pediatrician at the University of California San Francisco, said they found that around 16% said they tried but failed to use social media less and 23% said they spent a lot of time thinking about their social media apps.
And these were underage users. "So I do think that symptoms of addiction would probably be even more common among older teenagers who tend to use social media more," he says.
Nagata has also studied how compulsive use of social media affects kids' mental health. He says 11- and 12-year-olds with addictive social media use were more likely to have depression, attention problems and behavioral issues one year later. And this is after accounting for their mental health at the start of the study.
"And we also unfortunately found that it was associated with higher risk of suicidal behaviors, sleep disturbances and even experimentation with substances like marijuana, tobacco and alcohol one year later," he says.
What could make social media less compelling to teens
Social media companies have initiated some changes to help both adults and younger people reign in their screen time, like time limits or the option to turn off notifications. These strategies, known as "friction," can make a person more mindful about their use of social media.
But researchers say minors are more vulnerable than adults and platforms should do more to reduce addictive design elements. Mitch Prinstein, who researches technology and brain development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says teens shouldn't be getting notifications or at least not as many notifications of likes, or dislikes. He says the like feature especially is not a good fit for the developing teen brain.
"These are young folks who have a hypersensitive, social brain and a very weak prefrontal cortex," he says, explaining that means it's harder for them to put the brakes on their social media use. "It's just too hard for adolescent brains to resist."
Nagata points to the regulations proposed in the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate in 2024 and has been languishing in the House ever since. It includes design changes like restricting infinite scroll, personalized feeds and notifications for minors.
Nagata says it would be especially helpful to limit notifications particularly at bed time — because research shows it interferes with sleep and can exacerbate mental health symptoms — and during school.
Both Prinstein and Nagata say that the default privacy setting for minors should be set so that their data is not shared with other companies, and isn't used to personalize content that can keep them hooked to social media for extended periods of time.
Parental controls are also key, they say. "Most adults would be shocked if they looked through a children's feed," Prinstein says, noting that kids, especially girls, often see sexualized content, content promoting self-harm or eating disorders or overtures from predators.
"This is just not a place where it's safe or appropriate for kids to be spending even a few minutes, in some cases, much less hours every single day," he says.
And they want to see age verifications that actually work. Though the minimum age requirement in the U.S. currently is 13 years, Nagata learned in his research that two-thirds of 11- and 12-year-olds already have social media accounts and most of them have more than three accounts. "Anyone right now can put in a fake date of birth and get access to an account," he says.
Prinstein notes that other countries have more regulation than the U.S. For example, Australia banned social media for kids under 16. But in the U.S., parents are on their own.
"Until someone compels platforms to do something differently, sadly, the burden is on us to limit our kids' exposure," he says.