Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, disagrees with the idea that 16 hours spent on social media a day could be considered an addiction.
As reported by the BBC, Mosseri testified in a trial that kicked off in the Los Angeles Superior Court this week, which accused platforms such as Instagram and Google’s YouTube of creating addictive platforms that are damaging to the health of minors. The lead plaintiff in the case, identified by her initials K.G.M., argued that these companies targeted children and worked internally to increase the amount of time users spent on the platforms. TikTok and Snapchat were also named in the lawsuit, but reached settlements before the trial started.
During Mosseri’s testimony this week, he agreed with K.G.M’s attorney, Mark Lanier, that Instagram should help keep users, including young people, safe when using the platform. But he said he couldn’t determine how much time was too much spent on Instagram. He argued that it’s “a personal thing” for users, and that some could use the platform “more than you and feel good about it.”
“It's important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use," said Mosseri, who also told the attorney that he wasn’t an expert on addiction. “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.” When asked for his thoughts on K.G.M spending as much as 16 hours on Instagram in a single day, he replied, “That sounds like problematic use.”
Amid the testimony, Mosseri was also asked about a survey of 269,000 Instagram users, which found that approximately 60 percent of people experienced bullying on the platform. K.G.M. previously revealed that she reported 300 instances of bullying on Instagram. When he arrived at the courthouse this week, Mosseri was greeted by protestors and parents who aren’t directly involved in the lawsuit, but have a personal grievance against the companies behind the platforms. He’s not the only top executive expected to testify in the lawsuit, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube chief executive Neal Mohan will testify.
Mariano Janin was one person who showed up to show support for K.G.M’s lawsuit. He protested with a photo of his late daughter Mia, who died by suicide in 2021 when she was just 14. “If they changed their business model, it would be different," Janin said. "They should protect kids. They have the technology; they have the funds."
K.G.M’s attorney, Mark Lanier, has argued that Meta and Google “built machines designed to addict the brains of children, and they did it on purpose.” Lawyers representing Meta and Google, however, have argued that K.G.M’s apparent addiction to social media was not their fault, but due to several factors in her life. He also accused YouTube of taking advantage of parents who don’t always have time to entertain their children, using the video platform as a “digital babysitting service.”