Snapchat parent company Snap has reached a confidential settlement with two teenagers who alleged the app encouraged compulsive use and harmed their mental health, ending their Los Angeles trial, according to their attorneys.
“Families shouldn’t have to go jury by jury to solve a problem this big,” plaintiffs’ lead trial attorney Mark Lanier said in his firm’s Nov. 2 announcement. His team said it will continue pursuing cases seeking changes to the way social media platforms work for young users.
The plaintiffs are a 16-year-old Illinois girl identified as S.J. and an 18-year-old Mississippi woman identified as K.D.B., according to Reuters. They alleged that compulsive social media use contributed to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
Snap was the last company still facing their trial after the plaintiffs reached settlements with Meta, TikTok and YouTube. Jury selection began Oct. 28 in Los Angeles Superior Court, with opening statements expected in November. Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel had been expected to testify.
The lawyers did not disclose the settlement terms, so there is no public dollar figure to report. The agreement is not a jury verdict against Snap, and the announcement does not establish an admission of wrongdoing. It also does not resolve the thousands of other claims pending against social media companies.
Related: Meta Settles Teen’s Social Media Harm Claims. Is That Enough?
“Our ultimate goal is to hold these social media companies accountable for how their actions have impacted millions of children across the country, and these settlements allow us to keep building toward that goal,” Attorneys John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, trial counsel for K.D.B., said in a joint statement reported by Reuters.
Snap also addressed the agreement, telling the New York Post that the parties were pleased to resolve the matter amicably. The company has pointed to safeguards, safety tutorials and partnerships with experts. Before the agreement, a Snap spokesperson told ABC News on Oct. 28 that the allegations misrepresented the plaintiffs’ experiences and the platform’s design, emphasizing that Snapchat opens to a camera rather than a feed.
The case was a bellwether to help show how similar claims might fare, not a trial deciding every family’s lawsuit. Reuters reported that the next bellwether trials are scheduled for March. For now, this agreement closes two plaintiffs’ cases without giving other families a jury’s assessment of the evidence against Snap.
The distinction matters at home, too. Neither a private settlement nor a company’s description of its safety features tells a parent everything about a particular teen’s online experience. The practical question remains what an app is doing in a child’s daily life — and whether the family understands how the child uses it.
For parents whose teens already use Snapchat, the company’s Family Center offers a concrete place to start that conversation. Snap says parents can see their teen’s friends, who they are chatting with and average time spent across app features, without reading private conversations. A teen must accept the invitation to participate; parents cannot simply switch it on alone.
That makes an honest conversation part of the process, not an optional extra. Parents can ask a teen to walk through the app with them, explain which features keep drawing them back and discuss boundaries that protect offline family time. A courtroom agreement may end a case, but it does not replace attentive parenting.
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