Ivan Garcia, a freshman majoring in human biology, said he doesn’t remember the first time he started using social media, but it could have been around 2016 — when he was either 10 or 11 years old.

“A lot of people were on it, so I was just like, ‘I need to get on it,'” Garcia said.

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Even though Instagram has a policy preventing users under the age of 13 from joining the app, Garcia found his way onto the app anyway, and it has since become a “really big” part of his life. He also said Instagram makes it hard for him to concentrate because of the number of notifications the app sends, and that comparing himself to others has taken a toll on his mental health.

This isn’t new. A 2022 survey by Common Sense Media found that 38% of children between ages eight and 12 used social media in 2021, and they used social media for five-and-a-half hours on average. On Oct. 24, California and 32 other states sued Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, arguing this was all by design. 

The lawsuit accuses Meta of developing “harmful and psychologically manipulative” features that facilitate social media addiction, maximizing time spent on its platforms. Because Meta earns profit from selling advertisements and collecting data from users, the lawsuit alleges that Meta specifically targeted addictive features to its users under 18 years old who are “particularly vulnerable to certain forms of manipulation” to maximize profits.

The alleged practices violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule — a collection of federal requirements on websites to protect children under 13 years old from online services — by collecting data on young users without parental consent and not adequately preventing  users under 13 from using its platforms. The lawsuit also accuses Meta of violating consumer protection laws by making misleading statements about the safety of its platforms.

Adam Zimmerman, a professor of law at the Gould School of Law, said Meta is likely to argue that it is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which has thus far relieved social media companies of responsibility for what is posted on their platforms, and that the content it curates on its platforms falls under First Amendment rights. Zimmerman said the case is “cutting edge” in addressing these accusations in court.  

“Those questions about the First Amendment, the scope of Section 230, and the novel application of these statutes and rules to this type of problem will all be vigorously contested,” Zimmerman said. “We just don’t know whether the state [attorneys general] will succeed.”

The lawsuit highlighted specific manipulative features, including recommendation algorithms that trigger quick hits of dopamine and an infinite scrolling mechanism that prevents users from easily disengaging from the app. In 2021, leaked internal documents revealed Meta’s own studies found that 32% of teenage girls said Instagram exacerbated body dysmorphia, and that 1 in 5 U.S. teens said Instagram made them feel worse about themselves. The lawsuit alleges Meta downplayed and failed to account for these effects. 

Sunny Bae, a junior majoring in design, said the portrayal of unrealistic body standards on Instagram has affected her.

“I used to be bothered by it when I was younger, but now I’m just over it,” said Bae, who started using Instagram in middle school. 

Although Meta has rolled out protective features in the past, such as reminders to take a break from social media or an option to hide likes to prevent the negative effects of comparing likes with others, the lawsuit argues Meta hasn’t gone far enough. Leaked internal documents also revealed that Meta rolled out the hidden likes feature for optics despite studies that found it had little effect on teens. 

Garcia said he typically uses his device’s “do not disturb” feature to avoid being distracted by notifications. He also said while he has hid likes before, the feature is hard to find. Bae said she didn’t even know the features existed. 

Zimmerman said state AGs have a large amount of resources to fully litigate their cases, drawing from the strength in numbers and pressure from a frustrated public. However, he said the sheer number of lawsuits from different groups  — from states, to individuals, to school districts, to potentially the federal government — could jeopardize a decisive outcome for the states.

“Maybe the state AGs are like, ‘Okay, we agree,’ but then are all the schools going to agree to what the state AGs agreed to?” Zimmerman said. “If the schools don’t agree, do they have to follow along with [what] the state AG says, or can they bring their own independent plans?”

Zimmerman compared the Meta lawsuit to the historic $206 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998 for marketing its products to youth while lying about how addictive and dangerous they were. As part of the settlement, tobacco companies committed to ending their manipulative marketing strategies and funding a $1.5 billion anti-tobacco marketing campaign, the Truth Initiative. 

“We’ll just have to wait and see how the courts begin initially responding to this before we can really even know how successful the cases will be,” Zimmerman said, “whether it will look like the tobacco settlements or just like another case that ultimately doesn’t produce results.”