Among the 17m American children who use Instagram, the average time spent scrolling the app each day is 30 minutes. But for Kaley, a 20-year-old who started using social media aged six, it became an hours-a-day addiction. Spending time on Instagram, as well as YouTube, led to feelings of body dysmorphia and thoughts of self-harm, she claimed. On March 25th a jury in California agreed, ordering the apps’ parent companies, Meta and Google, to pay Kaley (whose full name has not been made public) $6m in damages.
The payout amounts to less than one-thousandth of a percent of the companies’ annual sales. But it threatens to do them far more harm. The novel legal argument used by Kaley’s lawyers may bring social networks to heel in a way that previous attempts have not. The firms are weighing their options—both have said they will appeal—but the ruling could be a turning point in how social apps are regulated.