Lawyers argue that Instagram is tracking increased usage while targeting teens

Instagram tracks the time users spend using its app, with company executives pointing to “milestones” its app has reached year after year. Daily usage of the app rose from 40 minutes per day in 2023 to 46 minutes per day in 2026, according to documents disclosed during CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in a state court lawsuit that took place in Los Angeles County Superior Court in February.

The focus on time-consuming metrics is a key factor in the lawsuit, which is one of Zuckerberg’s rare appearances before a jury.

In KGM v. Platforms et al., now underway in Los Angeles County Superior Court, a jury will determine whether social media companies are liable for youth mental health problems caused by their platforms or addictive designs. Snap and TikTok settled before the trial began, but executives from the other defendants, Meta and YouTube, are testifying as part of the trial.

The 19-year-old plaintiff in the case, who goes by her initials KGM or “Kaley,” says social media use at an early age was detrimental to her mental health, leading to her becoming addicted to technology and developing depression, including thoughts of suicide.

Meta argues that its app is responsible for Kaley’s problems.

“The question for the jury in Los Angeles is whether Instagram was a material factor in the plaintiff’s mental suffering. The evidence will show that she faced many significant and difficult challenges long before she used social media,” Stephanie Ottway, a spokeswoman for Meta, said in an emailed statement about the case.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers hope to prove that Meta set goals internally to increase the time users spent on Instagram, despite their knowledge that minors were on the platform. In Zuckerberg’s testimony, he was pressed on why he would tell Congress in 2024 that children under 13 are not allowed to use Instagram, when internal documents showed that the company knew there were about 4 million children under 13 on the app in 2015. The document also noted that this number represents 30% of all 10- to 12-year-olds in the United States.

Zuckerberg backed away from the line of questioning, saying he answered the question in Congress honestly by stating company policy, and noting that Instagram removed underage users it found. He also tried to clarify that the “milestones” the company was tracking were not the same specific “goals” that the Instagram team was tasked with achieving.

However, other documents cited by the plaintiff’s legal team during his testimony pointed to Instagram’s growing interest in tween and tween demographics, with emails written by a former product manager going so far as to say, “Our company’s overall goal is total time spent by teens,” and that “Mark has determined that the company’s top priority in the first half of 2017 is teens.” Another market snapshot in December 2018 also found that teens were the “highest employee retention age group” in the US, suggesting the company was concerned with the demographic.

Another email, penned by Zuckerberg adviser Nick Clegg, who left the company last year, suggested that Instagram’s age requirements were essentially “unenforceable.”

Despite knowing it had underage users on its platform, Instagram took no action to address its existing underage users until August 2021, when it began asking users to enter their birthdays, the plaintiff’s lawyers said. (Meta responded that it began requiring ages when signing up in 2019 for new users.)

Although Instagram has recently rolled out a series of teen protections and parental controls, its focus on the younger demographic remains. Other internal documents referenced in this testimony indicated that Meta’s current hope is for Instagram to be the largest destination for teens by monthly active users in the United States and globally this year.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide or needs to talk, there are people who want to help. Call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

This article was corrected after publication to indicate that this is not Zuckerberg’s first appearance before a jury, as he previously appeared in a trial focused on Meta’s virtual reality technology.