Newly unsealed court documents show that major tech companies explicitly made teen addiction a 'top priority' in their product design. Internal communications detail strategies to maximize engagement among adolescent users, contradicting years of public denials. This isn't about algorithms gone wrong - it's about deliberate choices.
The documents come from the 2026 social media addiction trials (MDL No. 3047), and they're damning. We're not talking about unintended consequences or features that accidentally became addictive. We're talking about companies that identified teenagers as their "top priority" and built products specifically designed to hook them.
Let's start with Meta. Internal emails show Mark Zuckerberg decided that "the top priority for the company in H1 2017 is teens." Not "how do we serve teens better" or "how do we make our platforms safer for young users." Just: teens are the priority. They're the target.
Documents reference strategies like "School Blasts" - mass notifications sent during school hours to boost teen engagement. An employee noted: "Engaging teens in an area/school with our products is crucial." They weren't trying to be a useful tool for students. They were trying to be a distraction, a compulsion, something teens couldn't ignore even during class.
Internal research showed teens described Instagram use in terms of addiction, stating they "can't switch off from Instagram even if they want to." And Meta knew this. They measured it. They had the data showing their product was addictive to children, and they used that information to... make it more addictive. They even calculated lifetime value, determining that a 13-year-old was worth approximately $270.
A 13-year-old. Worth $270. That's not a user, it's inventory.
Google and YouTube aren't any better. Internal slideshows acknowledged that YouTube's autoplay feature disrupts sleep patterns. A 2019 slide stated: "The YouTube experience in K-12 schools is broken." Their own materials admitted they weren't measuring whether wellbeing tools actually work. They built features to quiet criticism, not to actually help.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel requested the full text of articles confirming middle schoolers were "rabid" Snapchat users despite age restrictions. Internal research showed 64% of Snapchatters ages 13-21 used the app during school. That's not accidental. That's the product working as designed.
TikTok documents confirm: "Compulsive usage on TikTok is rampant and our users need better tools" to manage it. Notice the phrasing - "compulsive usage is rampant." Not "some users struggle with overuse." Rampant. Everywhere. By design.
And here's the part that really gets me: all these companies worked with the National PTA and Family Online Safety Institute to "control the narrative" regarding teen safety concerns. They weren't partnering with parent groups to fix the problem. They were partnering with them to manage PR.
I've built tech products. I know how feature prioritization works. I know what it looks like when a company says "engagement is our north star metric." These aren't accidental outcomes. These are choices. Design choices. Business model choices. Choices to optimize for addiction over wellbeing because addiction drives daily active users and daily active users drive ad revenue.
The documents show companies knew exactly what they were doing. They measured teen addiction, studied it, and doubled down on it. Then they went to Congress and testified that they care about teen mental health. That's not a mistake. That's fraud.
