It’s been building for years.
Across the country, parents are desperate to undo some of the impacts of the smartphone era. They've pledged to wait to introduce cell phones, pushed for phone limits in schools and revived relics like flip phones and retro landlines.
Then came a stunning development.
On Wednesday, Aug. 25, Meta Platforms – the company behind Facebook and Instagram – agreed to pay up to $16.68 billion and make wide-scaling changes to its products as part of a monumental settlement with a coalition of attorneys general over assertions the company designed its apps to addict children and mislead the public.
"It's a watershed moment," says South Carolina State Rep. Brandon Guffey, whose 17-year-old son Gavin died by suicide after becoming
a victim of online sextortion that began on Instagram. Guffey has an ongoing lawsuit against Instagram. The Meta settlement, he says, "just validates everything that I have been fighting for and trying to raise awareness."
Here’s how the Meta verdict could change your child’s social media
If the settlement is approved, it would require Meta to implement the following changes for accounts of teens ages 13 to 17:
- Daily limits: A two-hour daily limit across platforms, excluding time spent messaging or watching longform content over 22 minutes.
- School mode: Push notifications will be disabled from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays.
- Night access mode: From 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. and from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., push notifications will be disabled.
- Productive pauses: Meta will prompt teens reminding them to take a break from the app after 15 minutes straight of use and again at 60 and 90 minutes of cumulative use.
Supervising parent users can modify these settings.
The new automatic protections will be rolled out in six months, according to Meta, while new age assurance commitments could take up to a year.
"The framework we've negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms," C.J. Mahoney, Meta's Chief Legal Officer, said in a statement where the company also called on TikTok and YouTube to implement the framework. "Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution."
TikTok and YouTube did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube still face thousands of lawsuits in federal and state courts over allegations that their products targeted young users.
The settlement sets a precedent that states will be able to make social media companies and other tech companies impose safety features for many of their users, especially with children, says James Grimmelmann, the Tessler family professor of digital and information law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School.
"Parents [should] know that a bunch of new controls on how their kids use Facebook and Instagram are coming," Grimmelmann says.
The digital childhood is having its biggest reckoning yet
The conversation about young people and screen time has become more widespread in a post-COVID-19 world, brought on by books like Jonathan Haidt’s "The Anxious Generation," schoolwide phone bans and the U.S. surgeon general’s office warnings about loneliness and screens.
A plethora of parent groups with names like Landline Kids, Outside Play Lab, Log OFF movement and OK to Delay have gained traction. Some are turning back the clock to 1995 with low or no tech households, embracing locked pouches or apps that claim to help clamp down on phone addictions, and using the recent "Toy Story 5" movie to open up conversations with their kids.
That movement has roots within Gen Z, too, as young people host phone-free parties and carry analog bags. In June, events aggregator Eventbrite declared it "The Offline Summer."
There have been wide-scale wins — 45 states have adopted policies limiting or banning cell phones in schools. In December, Australia became the first country to ban social media for kids under 16, and countries including Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Indonesia have since enacted or approved similar plans.
But so far, it’s been a slow growing movement to sever teens from their phones and social media. The Meta settlement, experts say, could be the tipping point that makes the push to get kids off screen more mainstream.
Even in households that have never previously discussed screen time, forced limits on social platforms – if they’re enacted – may spark changes and conversations, according to experts.
Grimmelmann says he expects the involved states and Meta to heavily advertise the changes.
"Meta and the state attorneys general are clearly trying to use this as the basis for a new bargain for social media- one that applies to everybody," Grimmelmann says.
He says the weakness associated with Meta’s products is "one more thing" telling parents "to be paranoid about their kids’ tech use."
"This strongly should set a precedent, and I think should have people paying attention and thinking more critically," says Holly Moscatiello, the founder of the Balance Project, a nonprofit that aims to help kids balance independence and mindful technology usage. "The more awareness that is out there, the more parents can adapt."
Moscatiello says the settlement isn’t "a magic solution," but she’s encouraged by the proposed platform changes.
"What I'm happy about, and what I think this moment represents, is a real opportunity for reflection for the entire industry to say, 'We might not have done this correctly before, we might have made some poor choices, but we know better, and we can do better.'"
Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach her at rhale@usatoday.com and @rachelleighhale on X.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Childhood went digital. Now the backlash is going mainstream
