Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram, court hears

"There can be no dispute that Meta has recognised people struggle, or can struggle, with their use of social media, and has come up with tools to try and address that," Schmidt said.Yet, he pointed to past statements from chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and head of Instagram Adam Mosseri that not only were Facebook and Instagram not designed to be addictive, scientific research has not yet come to support the idea that an addiction to social media is possible.O'Neill's opening arguments seemed to challenge Schmidt's argument.She relied heavily on information found in millions of documents provided in the case from Meta, including internal research, employee emails, and chat logs, all the way up Zuckerberg.One such piece of internal research stated about young people and Instagram: "Teens have an addict's narrative about use."In another that O'Neill pointed the jury to, Meta found "product features designed to increase time spent are inherently at odds with well-being and take away from people's ability to focus on activity that adds value to their lives".Despite Meta's awareness of potentially negative impacts, O'Neill argued that Meta targeted young people as users of Facebook and Instagram and went out of its way to "assure the public that its platforms were safe for kids".Meta's business model could be summed up this way: "Hook the users; hold them for as long as they can; harvest their data; hide the truth from the public when making public statements," she said.