Yes, the jury in the landmark social media addiction trial is still deliberating as of late March 2026. After beginning deliberations on March 13 in Los Angeles Superior Court, the jury has spent more than eight days trying to reach a verdict, with no conclusion in sight. Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl has already warned that if the jury deadlocks on one specific defendant, a partial retrial may be necessary.
The trial involves K.G.M. (known as Kaley), a 20-year-old from Chico, California, who alleges that Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive, causing her depression and suicidal ideation during her teenage years. The defendants argue that Kaley’s home life and personal factors caused her suffering, not the platform designs. The jury has already moved past the liability phase and is now focused on determining financial damages.
Table of Contents
- Why Is This Social Media Addiction Trial Such a Big Deal?
- What Does the Plaintiff Allege the Companies Did?
- Why Is the Jury Taking So Long to Reach a Verdict?
- What Happens if the Jury Deadlocks?
- What’s the Current Timeline?
- What Happens to the Other 2,000+ Social Media Addiction Cases?
- What Does This Case Mean for the Regulation of Social Media?
Why Is This Social Media Addiction Trial Such a Big Deal?
This case is what lawyers call a “bellwether trial,” meaning it’s the first significant jury verdict in a category of litigation that will influence thousands of similar pending cases. Of the more than 2,000 lawsuits filed against the four largest social media companies, this is the first to actually reach a jury trial. Two companies—TikTok and Snap—settled before trial, but meta and YouTube chose to fight, making this outcome potentially transformative for the entire litigation landscape.
The stakes for both sides are enormous. If the jury rules in Kaley’s favor and awards substantial damages, it could open the floodgates for settlements and judgments across the rest of the cases. If the jury sides with the tech companies, it may undermine thousands of pending claims and signal that addiction-by-design is legally defensible. The bellwether mechanism exists precisely for situations like this, where a single trial can clarify the law and shape settlement values for an entire category of disputes.
What Does the Plaintiff Allege the Companies Did?
Kaley’s lawyers argue that Instagram and youtube employed engineering techniques specifically designed to maximize user engagement and keep people scrolling—features like infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendation feeds that serve increasingly extreme content, notification systems timed to encourage return visits, and reward mechanisms that trigger dopamine responses similar to gambling. They contend these weren’t accidental design choices but deliberate practices aimed at exploiting the reward systems in young brains that are still developing. The plaintiff claims this engineered addiction directly caused her depression and suicidal ideation starting in her early teenage years.
The defendants have presented a fundamentally different narrative. Meta and Google’s lawyers argue that billions of people use social media without developing depression or suicidal ideation, and that Kaley’s mental health struggles stemmed from her home environment, personal circumstances, and other non-platform factors beyond the companies’ control. They’ve argued that even if the platforms are engaging, engagement itself isn’t illegal or inherently harmful. However, the jury’s extended deliberations suggest that this simple narrative isn’t persuading everyone in the jury box, even though the burden of proof rests on Kaley to show causation.
Why Is the Jury Taking So Long to Reach a Verdict?
According to recent reports, the jury has reported “difficulty coming to a consensus,” with particular struggle around one unnamed defendant—likely indicating some jurors believe one company is more responsible than the other, or that damages should differ significantly between Meta and YouTube. Extended jury deliberations in civil cases often reflect genuine disagreement over the evidence, differing understandings of legal standards, or principled disagreement about what the evidence actually proves. Eight days is substantial for a jury deliberation, especially once the difficult questions of liability have been decided.
The jury has already determined that there’s enough evidence to move past the liability phase, meaning a majority agreed with at least some of Kaley’s core claims. The current phase—determining financial damages—can be even more divisive because it requires jurors to assign a dollar value to intangible harms like emotional suffering. Some jurors may believe in the case but think damages should be modest, while others want to send a strong message to the tech industry with a larger award. These disagreements are harder to resolve because there’s no objective “right” number.
What Happens if the Jury Deadlocks?
Judge Kuhl has already indicated that if the jury deadlocks entirely or deadlocks on one defendant, a partial retrial may be ordered. A partial retrial would be unusual and complex—it might mean that liability is established (saving time and money) but a new jury would be impaneled to decide damages, or that the case would be retried against one defendant while the other’s liability stands. This uncertainty is itself a form of pressure on the current jury to reach some kind of agreement if they possibly can.
A complete mistrial wouldn’t mean the case is over; Kaley’s attorneys could refile and try the case again with a new jury. However, this would mean months or years of additional litigation, continued uncertainty, and additional legal costs for all parties. For settlements involving hundreds of pending cases, a mistrial would delay resolution of the bellwether question that so many claimants are waiting to see answered. For this reason, judges often encourage juries to continue deliberating longer than they might naturally be inclined to do.
What’s the Current Timeline?
The jury began deliberations on March 13, 2026, in Los Angeles Superior Court. As of March 23-24, they had deliberated for more than eight days without reaching a verdict. There’s no official deadline for when they must finish, though judges typically set expectations that deliberations will conclude within a few weeks. If the jury continues to struggle, the judge may eventually declare a mistrial, though this remains speculative at this point.
The trial itself—not including jury selection or pre-trial motions—has taken weeks of testimony, expert witnesses, and closing arguments. Once the jury reaches a verdict, the judge may allow post-trial motions from either side, which could take additional weeks or months to resolve. Appeals would likely follow regardless of the outcome, potentially extending the case for years. For claimants in the other 2,000+ pending cases, this timeline means any resolution to their claims based on this bellwether verdict is likely months away at minimum.
What Happens to the Other 2,000+ Social Media Addiction Cases?
Once this jury renders a verdict, that outcome will serve as a benchmark for negotiating settlements in the pending cases. If the jury awards substantial damages to Kaley, defendants will face intense pressure to settle the remaining cases, likely at higher values than they would have accepted pre-trial.
If the jury awards little or nothing, or if a mistrial is declared, defense lawyers will argue that the remaining claimants have weak cases and settlement values should be minimal. TikTok and Snap’s pre-trial settlements will also factor into the negotiations, as their settlement amounts provide a reference point for what the companies were willing to pay to avoid jury trials. Meta and YouTube’s decision to fight this case to a jury verdict represents a calculated bet that they can convince jurors that social media design, however engaging, doesn’t legally cause addiction in a compensable way.
What Does This Case Mean for the Regulation of Social Media?
Regardless of the jury’s verdict, this trial has already shifted the conversation around social media and youth mental health. The detailed testimony about platform design features, algorithmic amplification, and engagement metrics has provided a public record of how these systems work—information that regulators, legislators, and future litigants can reference.
If the jury rules in Kaley’s favor, it signals that federal and state courts will recognize addiction-by-design as a legitimate legal harm. This could accelerate legislative efforts to regulate social media platforms’ design choices and might even inspire similar litigation against other technology companies. If the jury rules against Kaley, the industry will claim vindication, though the detailed case record will still provide evidence that plaintiff’s attorneys can use to refine their approach in subsequent litigation.