LOS ANGELES: The plaintiff in a blockbuster social media trial in Los Angeles took the stand Thursday (Feb 26), telling the jury that she could not control her use of YouTube and Instagram as a child.
“I was at a young age and I would spend all my time on it,” Kaley GM, a 20-year-old California resident, testified when asked to explain why she thought she was addicted to YouTube.
“Anytime I tried to separate myself from it, it just didn’t work,” she added.
And even if she was bullied on Instagram, she still stayed on the app. “If I was off, I would just feel like I was missing out.”
In the highly anticipated testimony, Kaley GM took questions from her lawyer, who sought to paint a picture of an emotionally fragile user who was ensnared as a child to increase her use of YouTube and Instagram.
The landmark trial is expected to last until late March, when the jury will decide whether Meta, which owns Instagram, and Google-owned YouTube, bear responsibility for knowingly designing addictive apps that affected her mental health.
“I’m very nervous,” Kaley GM, wearing a pale pink cardigan over a purple and white dress, said as she began her testimony, which will include cross-examination by lawyers from Meta and Google.
Kaley described scenes from her childhood in which her mother would have her leave her phone in the living room, but she would retrieve it once her mom went to bed, only to return it before morning.
Her lawyer Mark Lanier said court records indicate that on one day, she was on Instagram for 16 hours.