We Fight for the Rights of Personal Injury and Accident Victims
Our goal is to make sure you get the justice you deserve and are fully compensated for your harms and losses
Social Media Harm, Social Media Addiction Lawsuit
Social Media Addiction Lawyer Tracy Paulsen is fighting for justice for Children and Adolescents who have been harmed by Social Media Addiction. Many Massachusetts children and young adults used social media channels like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat as a fun way to connect with others, only to develop serious mental health issues such as:
- eating disorders,
- body dysmorphia,
- suicidal ideation and actions, and
- self-harm.
Social media giants like Meta, Snap, and YouTube use predatory algorithms that hook teenagers through powerful psychological manipulation. Social media platforms trigger addictive dopamine responses through endless scrolling, strategic notification timing, and social validation features, exploiting heightened vulnerability to peer approval in people under the age of 25. Internal documents reveal these companies knowingly designed their apps to maximize teen addiction, despite mounting evidence of harmful mental health impacts.
For Attorney Tracy Paulsen, representing teenagers and young adults harmed by social media addiction is a fight for justice. It is the mission of Rightful Legal to hold the technology companies who targeted young people to maximize profits responsible for their actions. We believe that representing clients in Mass Torts against social media corporations will lead to more protective regulation, oversight, and enforcement to protect future young people. Attorney Paulsen and the entire team at Rightful Legal are driven to Fight for Your Rights and punish the technology corporations who have harmed you and your family.
Warning: This article includes discussions about suicide and suicidal thinking, which may be distressing for some readers. If you or someone you know is struggling, you can reach out to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or by visiting 988lifeline.org. You are not alone, and there are people who want to help.
⇨ If you received treatment for an Eating Disorder, Body Dysmorphia, Suicidal Ideation or Attempt, or Self-Harm caused by Social Media Addiction, you can reach us by calling 617-821-5856 or contacting our Mass Tort Attorneys at Rightful Legal online now.
What is Social Media Addiction?
Social Media Addiction is a disorder that includes a variety of symptoms related to the excessive use of social apps and websites, especially in people 25 years old or younger. It can include:
- Excessive Screen Time: Social media addiction often leads to hours of daily screen use, interfering with sleep, schoolwork, and face-to-face interactions, harming development.
- Mental Health Impact: Constant social media use is linked to increased anxiety, depression, and feelings of inadequacy, as young users compare themselves to unrealistic online images.
- Behavioral Changes: Addicted teens and young adults may become irritable or withdrawn when unable to access social media, prioritizing it over hobbies, friendships, and responsibilities.
- Dopamine Dependency: Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are designed to trigger dopamine releases with likes, comments, and notifications, creating a cycle of dependency similar to substance addiction.
- Decreased Attention Span: Constant scrolling and instant gratification reduce the ability to focus on tasks or engage in deep, meaningful conversations.
- Sleep Disruption: Late-night scrolling disrupts sleep patterns, contributing to fatigue, mood swings, and poor academic performance.
What are the Signs of Social Media Addiction?
If you are worried that you or someone you love suffers from social media addiction, look for the following indicators:
- Significant mood swings or emotional shifts.
- Intense focus and obsession with social media platforms.
- Reduced involvement in real-life activities and face-to-face interactions.
- Spending an excessive amount of time on social media.
- Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when access to devices or accounts is restricted.
- Frequent arguments or tension with family and friends due to social media habits.
- Returning to excessive social media use after attempting to abstain.
These symptoms can be signs of serious Social Media Addiction.
How Does Social Media Addiction Harm You?
Social Media Addiction hurts teens and young adults in several ways. It can lead to the following serious psychological problems:
- Body Dysmorphia: Social media addiction exposes young users to a constant stream of edited and filtered images, setting unrealistic beauty standards. This comparison can lead to negative self-image and obsessive thoughts about physical features, fueling body dysmorphia.
- Suicidal Ideation: Constant online interactions can amplify feelings of isolation, inadequacy, or cyberbullying, pushing vulnerable youth toward despair. Social media algorithms may also expose users to harmful content, increasing the risk of suicidal thoughts.
- Eating Disorders: The promotion of “ideal” body types and unhealthy “diet culture” on social media can encourage unsafe eating behaviors. Young users may adopt restrictive diets or harmful weight-loss practices to match these unattainable standards, leading to eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia.
- Self-Harm: Social media can normalize or glamorize self-harm through posts or communities that share triggering content. Struggling users may imitate these behaviors as a coping mechanism for their emotional distress, exacerbating the problem.
These issues can have a devastating impact on teens and young adults, causing lifelong problems and even death.
⇨ If you or your family have been harmed by Social Media Addiction, call Rightful Legal at 617-821-5856 or contact Rightful Legal online today. Our team can provide a 100% free and private consultation to help you understand your case.
How Do Social Media Companies Target Teenagers and Young Adults?
Social media platforms are designed to keep users engaged for as long as possible, and teenagers are prime targets for this. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat use sophisticated algorithms that learn users’ unique preferences and push content that keeps them scrolling. These algorithms are intentionally built to maximize screen time by offering a constant stream of new, personalized posts, videos, and notifications, creating a cycle that’s hard to break.
The more time teenagers spend on these platforms, the more data companies collect about their behaviors, interests, and emotional triggers. This data is then used to make the content even more addictive. Social media companies benefit from keeping users, especially young ones, hooked—each minute spent on the app translates into more advertising revenue.
Teenagers, whose brains are still developing, are especially vulnerable to the addictive nature of these platforms. The algorithms are designed to exploit their need for social validation, with likes, comments, and shares fueling a constant desire for approval. The more a teenager interacts with the app, the more likely they are to receive notifications, making it difficult to disconnect.
The constant engagement encouraged by these platforms can have serious mental health consequences for teens and young adults. Research shows that excessive use of social media can lead to anxiety, depression, and poor self-esteem, with young users often feeling pressured to meet unrealistic standards set by the content they see. The platforms’ ability to manipulate emotions and behaviors makes it clear that the companies’ primary goal is profit through sustained attention, even if it comes at the expense of young users’ health.
How can You Stay Safe from Social Media Addiction?
To help prevent social media addiction from harming you or your child, experts suggest a few best practices to set boundaries around social media use. These include:
- Setting time limits (30-60 minutes daily) and using screen time tracking apps to help enforce boundaries
- Keeping your phone out of your bedroom at night and stopping social media use 1-2 hours before bedtime to protect sleep quality
- Following only accounts that make you feel genuinely positive or inspired, and immediately unfollowing any that trigger negative emotions or comparisons
- Taking regular social media breaks and “digital detox” days, focusing instead on in-person social connections, outdoor activities, and offline hobbies
- Enabling protective privacy settings, disabling notifications, and using apps’ built-in time management tools to avoid endless scrolling
Following these steps can help prevent the cycle of Social Media Addiction and protect you or your teen from eating disorders, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and even suicide.
⇨ If you or your child suffered from an Eating Disorder, Body Dysmorphia, Self-Harm, or Suicidality after becoming Addicted to Social Media, now is the right time to bring a claim. Contact Attorney Tracy Paulsen online or at 617-821-5856 now.
What are Mass Tort Lawsuits?
A mass tort lawsuit involves many injured plaintiffs suing one or multiple defendants for similar injuries caused by a common product or product type, such as social media platforms. Mass Torts are different than class-action lawsuits. In class action lawsuits, plaintiffs are treated together as one single group. Unlike these class-action lawsuits, Mass Torts allow individual claimants to try their cases separately but consolidate pretrial proceedings to make the litigation process more efficient.
Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) Involving Social Media Addiction
Many adolescents in Massachusetts and across the U.S. are suing social media companies for harming their mental health. There is currently a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) for these cases in the Northern District of California, called MDL 3047.
These lawsuits against social media platforms, such as, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat, allege that they shaped their sites and apps specifically to entrap young people in a dangerous cycle of addiction.
The Social Media Addiction MDL consolidates lawsuits from young individuals alleging that excessive social media use brought on by the addictive nature of these platforms, caused serious mental health issues, including eating disorders, self-harm, body dysmorphia, and suicidal ideation or actions.
- Allegations: Plaintiffs claim that the defendants’ social media platforms are defective, as they are intentionally engineered to maximize screen time, which can cause addictive behavior in youth. Claimants allege this addictive behavior results in various emotional and physical harms, up to and including death.
- Defendants: Major social media companies, including
- Meta Platforms, Inc.,
- Instagram LLC,
- Snap, Inc.,
- TikTok, Inc.,
- ByteDance, Inc.,
- YouTube LLC,
- Google LLC, and
- Alphabet Inc.
- Status: Discovery and pretrial proceedings are ongoing as the parties gather evidence, obtain expert testimony, and prepare for possible trials or settlements.
The case is drawing a tremendous amount of media attention regarding companies’ knowing deployment of strategies designed to create addiction, particularly for products marketed to teenagers and young adults.
⇨ These cases have not settled. There is still time for bring your claim. Contact Rightful Legal online or at 617-821-5856 today.
What Compensation can be Claimed in a Social Media Addiction Lawsuit?
Victims of body dysmorphia, suicidal thoughts or actions, eating disorders, or self-harm caused by Social Media Addiction can receive compensation including:
- lost wages (both past and future, if applicable),
- medical expenses (both past and future),
- Damages for pain and suffering, and
- possible punitive damages.
Each case is unique, and the compensation each claimant receives depends on their unique circumstances.
Many factors can affect the value of a Social Media Addiction personal injury Mass Tort claim. One important factor is the severity of the mental illness caused by the addiction, with more severe cases leading to more compensation. Other factors include the overall pain and suffering, age of the claimant, and the claimant’s other specific circumstances.
If you have lost a child or spouse to suicide or an eating disorder caused by social media addiction, our compassionate and experienced attorneys will evaluate your case for a potential wrongful death claim.
Did Social Media Companies Know They Were Harming Young Users?
Social media lawsuits are primarily focused on people who became addicted as teenagers.
This is because Meta’s strategy for attracting and keeping young users was built around exploiting the brain’s dopamine response, creating an addictive loop designed to keep them hooked. Other companies employed similar tactics against teens.
Social media algorithms are specifically engineered to keep teenagers engaged, feeding into their desire for instant gratification.
Adults, by contrast, generally have a more stable sense of identity, making them less susceptible to the severe mental health issues often linked to social media algorithms.
These companies made deliberate choices, leveraging developmental psychology to exploit the vulnerabilities of young minds for financial gain.
Despite internal research warning about the dangers of their platforms, social media companies continued to prioritize profit, much like pharmaceutical companies that knowingly sell harmful drugs without warning users of the potentially fatal side effects.
Why Should You Contact a Social Media Addiction Attorney Today?
You may be eligible to bring a claim and obtain significant compensation if:
- You are currently 25 years old or younger, AND
- Before turning 18, you spent 3 or more hours per day on
- Facebook,
- YouTube
- TikTok, or
- SnapChat, AND
- Before turning 21 you experienced
- An eating disorder,
- Body dysmorphia,
- Suicidal thoughts or a suicide attempt, AND
- Your injury was related to social media use and required treatment or counseling.
You may also be eligible if your loved one died from suicide or an eating disorder related to social media use.
If eligible, you should find an experienced Social Media Addiction Mass Tort attorney as soon as possible. Showing causation of your psychological injuries by social media addiction is complex and challenging. Social media companies have huge defense budgets and fight viciously to avoid compensating their victims. Attorney Tracy Paulsen and the entire team at Rightful Legal are passionate about holding the corporations behind these social media channels accountable for the injuries they knowingly inflicted on innocent children.
It is important to take action now if you are eligible. There are time limits, sometimes referred to as statutes of limitations, for filing a personal injury claim, including those caused by Social Media Addiction. This time limit begins to run out the moment you or your loved one’s injury is discovered. Even if you are no longer addicted to social media, you could still be discovering the damage done by your previous social media use.
You should contact a qualified Social Media Addiction Attorney today. You must act right away so you do not run out of time and lose your one chance to obtain the compensation you are owed. Rightful Legal can help you calculate the date your injury was discovered and take action before time runs out for your claim.
Why Should You Trust Rightful Legal with Your or Your Child’s Social Media Addiction Case?
At Rightful Legal, we provide you with a no-cost consultation to help you understand your case. This consultation is completely confidential, and there is no obligation. We want to speak to you and find out how we can help you and your family.
As an accomplished Mass Torts lawyer, Attorney Paulsen has dedicated her career to representing people harmed by corporations, including social media companies. Rightful Legal is here to Fight for Your Rights. Attorney Paulsen understands deeply that victims are just numbers to the corporations, who are driven by the desire to increase profits, even at the expense of the mental health of Massachusetts youth.
These companies intentionally targeted children, teens, and young adults, creating irresistible algorithms to get young people addicted and increase ad revenue. Attorney Tracy Paulsen is passionate about serving the young people who used social media channels to relax and connect with others, only to develop a devastating mental illness because companies wanted to keep them addicted. She knows how to fight fiercely and hold large technology companies accountable for the harm they have caused to young people and their families.
Contact Rightful Legal Now
At Rightful Legal, our legal team has represented plaintiffs in Mass Tort cases for over 15 years. This includes those cases involving Eating Disorders, Body Dysmorphia, Self-Harm, and Suicidality caused by Social Media Addiction. Our firm is ready to evaluate your case, examine and collect evidence, estimate potential compensation, handle all necessary filings, negotiate fair settlements, and, if it becomes necessary, represent you in court. It is crucial that you take action swiftly to protect your claim. Contact Rightful Legal and take control of your Social Media Addiction case today.
You can tell us your Social Media Addiction story immediately online or by calling 617-821-5856. We provide totally free and private consultations specific to each young person’s case. Attorney Paulsen has the skills and passion to assist you and your family in receiving compensation and obtaining the justice you deserve.
