LOS ANGELES—An expert witness called by defendants in a high-stakes trial considering whether social media companies designed their platforms to be addictive to children despite known harms, on Tuesday told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury that genetics and external stressors—not social media addiction—likely led a 20-year-old plaintiff to develop multiple psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Sonia Krishna, a child and adolescent psychiatrist based in Austin, Texas, told the court that the plaintiff, identified in court documents as “Kaley G.M.” or “K.G.M.,” did not in fact suffer from a clinical social media addiction, and that her mental health outcomes would have been the same without exposure to social media.
