Experts Call for Architectural Regulation of Social Media

Landmark social media addiction trials commenced in late January 2026 in California state court, pitting parents, teens, and school districts against major platforms including Meta (Instagram and Facebook), Google’s YouTube, Snap (Snapchat), and initially TikTok. The cases accuse the companies of deliberately designing addictive features – such as infinite scroll, autoplay videos, frequent notifications, and recommendation algorithms – that contribute to mental health harms including depression, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicidal ideation in young users.

Over 1,600 plaintiffs, encompassing more than 350 families and 250 school districts, are involved in these proceedings, marking the first major jury trials of their kind. TikTok settled with one key plaintiff just before jury selection began, while Snap reached an earlier agreement; Meta and YouTube are proceeding to trial. Jessica L. Schleider, an adolescent psychologist and director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, described the litigation as a “rare opportunity” to examine platform design rather than user behavior alone.

“For the first time, courts and the public are scrutinizing not just what young people do online, but what technology companies have built and why,” said Schleider, associate professor of medical social sciences, pediatrics and psychology. “Regulation should require transparency around how these systems operate, restrict or prohibit predatory algorithmic feeds for minors, and mandate safer defaults that restore user agency. This is not about censoring content; it is about regulating architecture.”

“Rather than cutting off access to platforms wholesale, we should require and incentivize the integration of proven mental health supports into the digital ecosystems young people already use. Adolescents are online, and they will stay there. The question is whether we will insist on making online spaces safer or settle for bans that let the real problems persist unchecked.”