High screen time on Instagram ‘problematic use’, not addiction — CEO Adam Mosseri cautions against casual use of term

Testifying in a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles on 11 February, Instagram head Adam Mosseri, claimed that children spending more time on the app can be viewed as “problematic use” and not clinically addiction, according to an AP report. He also cautioned against casual use of the psychological term.

Notably, ‘addiction’ is a key contention in the case, where plaintiffs are seeking to hold social media companies responsible for the harm caused to children using their platforms, it said. Among the co-defendants with Instagram in the case include Google's YouTube and Meta Platforms (Facebook), while Snapchat and TikTok have settled in the case.

The main plaintiff 20-year-old ‘KGM’ and two others, whose bell-weather lawsuits, expected to last six weeks, could determine thousands of other claims against these companies, the report added.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan are also expected to testify in the case.

Not addiction, must ‘be careful with words’: Mosseri

According to Mosseri, differentiating between clinical addiction and what he termed as “problematic use” is key, adding that he and his colleagues use the term to refer to “someone spending more time on Instagram than they feel good about, and that definitely happens.”

The BBC reported that Mosseri repeatedly sought to explain that feelings linked to Instagram use was “a personal thing” and “it's important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use”.

When the plaintiff's lawyer Mark Lanier pushed back that Mosseri himself has in a podcast interview used the term addiction to describe prolonged time spent on the app, he clarified that he was, as people tend to do, probably using the term "too casually”, the AP report said.

He also gave a personal example, as per the BBC, stating: “I'm sure I've said that I've been addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night, but I don't think it's the same thing as clinical addiction.”

Asked about his qualifications for making such distinctions on the legitimacy of social media addiction, Mosseri told Lanier he did not claim to be a medical expert but was “being careful with my words” as someone “very close” to him has experienced serious clinical addiction, the AP report said.

He also sought to rationalise that addiction was bad for profit and hence not a path the company would take. “It is not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for people’s wellbeing,” Mosseri said.

Trying to be safe, but not censor, says Instagram head

Mosseri and Lanier's back-and-forth about cosmetic filters on Instagram also lasted long, with the Instagram chief saying that the company is “trying to be as safe as possible but also censor as little as possible”.

Mosseri was also asked about a 2019 email exchange between Meta executives, where Meta's former head of global affairs Nick Clegg was among those to raise concern about the image filters. Lanier noted that the email stated that Meta would end up “rightly accused of putting growth over responsibility,” which would ultimately have a “regressive” impact on the company's reputation, the BBC report said.

Cosmetic filters on Instagram change people’s appearance in a way that seemed to promote plastic surgery, the plaintiff's side argued. Parents of the bereaved children were visibly emotional during the discussion around body dysmorphia in court, the AP report added.

The judge had to remind the audience and jury members to refrain from reacting emotionally to arguments or showing indication of agreement or disagreement with the testimony as it would be "improper to indicate some position”, it said.

Further, Lanier raised an internal Meta survey where 60% of 2,69,000 Instagram users questioned said they had seen or experience bullying in the previous week, the BBC report said. He also added that the plaintiff KGM had made 300 reports to Instagram about bullying on the platform and asked if Mosseri was aware, to which the executive said he did not know.

What protections has Instagram put in place?

In January 2025, Meta discontinued all third-party augmented reality (AR) filters. Over the years, Instagram has also added tools and features it claims has made the app safer for young people.

The report however noted that this does not always work as intended. In 2025, a report found that “teenager” accounts created by researchers were recommended age-inappropriate sexual content, including “graphic sexual descriptions, the use of cartoons to describe demeaning sexual acts, and brief displays of nudity."

It also found that teen accounts were recommended a “range of self-harm, self-injury, and body image content”, and concluded that it “would be reasonably likely to result in adverse impacts for young people, including teenagers experiencing poor mental health, or self-harm and suicidal ideation and behaviors.”

On its part, Meta claimed the report was “misleading, dangerously speculative” and misrepresents its teen safety measures. The Instagram parent is facing a separate trial in New Mexico this week.

(With inputs from AP)