[Taylor] Little is among more than 1,800 plaintiffs suing major social-media companies, including Instagram and its parent company Meta, in a massive multidistrict litigation in Northern California. The plaintiffs allege these companies have been "recklessly ignoring the impact of their products on children's mental and physical health," and that they are "direct victims of intentional product design choices made by each defendant." Little's own complaint seeks to hold Instagram accountable for "knowingly unleashing onto the public a defectively designed product that is addictive, harmful, and at times fatal to children." They allege the platform fed them a persistent stream of self-harm content that altered their brain and perpetuated constant thoughts of death. "The fact that I was obsessively suicidal at the age I was, that was not just my brain chemistry. That was my brain chemistry being altered by the platform I was on," Little tells TIME. "Social media shaped my brain." On Instagram, depression was "romanticized," Little says. The self-harm content "was kind of comforting"it felt like a twisted validation of their depression in a way. By the time Little turned 12, [Little's] Instagram feed was filled with images of girls falling off buildings, videos of blades cutting into unscarred flesh, and soft music framing stylized photos of hanging bodies. Teen suicides increased more than 57% between 2007 and 2018. Another 2019 study ... found that 38% of teens who used social media for an average of more than five hours per day showed signs of clinically relevant depression. Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan found that kids who were more addicted to social media were at two to three times higher risk of suicidal behavior.