According to TechCrunch, an internal study by Meta called the “MYST Project” (Meta and Youth Social-emotional Trends) was publicly disclosed. The study found that parental monitoring of teenagers' social media use - including time limits, access controls and family rules - were rarely effective in reducing teenagers' tendency to overuse or become addicted to the platforms.
It is reported that the study, conducted by Meta in collaboration with the University of Chicago, based on a survey of 1,000 adolescents and their parents, concluded that "parental and family factors have little association with adolescents' reported concern about social media use." The study further noted that neither parents' nor adolescents' own assessments of the intensity of supervision showed a significant relationship with adolescents' actual use of behavioral or self-control.
The study was submitted as key evidence by plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier in the case "KGM v. Meta et al." The plaintiff Kaley (pseudonym KGM) and her mother accused social platforms such as Meta and YouTube of designing "addictive and dangerous" products, which caused her to suffer from anxiety, depression and other serious mental health problems.
Lanier emphasized that the MYST project’s findings suggest that current mainstream parental control tools—such as Instagram’s built-in monitoring features or device-side usage limits—may not truly solve the problem of excessive use among teenagers. He pointed out that social media platforms systematically strengthen user stickiness through algorithm recommendations, intermittent variable reward mechanisms, continuous notification push and other designs, and the impact of these mechanisms is far beyond the scope that family intervention can offset.
In court testimony, Instagram head Adam Mosseri acknowledged the company's use of the term "problematic use" to describe behavior in which users spend "more time than they think is reasonable," but avoided using the term "addiction." Although a document showed he had approved the advancement of the MYST project, Mosseri said he was "unfamiliar" with the specifics of the research and said Meta had conducted a large number of research projects.
It is worth noting that the MYST study also found that teenagers who have experienced adverse life events (such as domestic violence, school bullying, or parental alcoholism) are more likely to use social media as a means of escaping reality and have a lower sense of control over their own use.
Meta's defense attorneys tried to attribute some of the blame to family circumstances and personal experiences. They also emphasized that the MYST project was designed to measure adolescents' subjective feelings rather than diagnose clinical addiction.