Justin Zheng
On Aug. 26, a coalition of 51 attorney generals from U.S. states and territories finalized a first-of-its-kind $17.1 billion settlement with Meta Platforms Inc., resolving a federal lawsuit which concerned the addictive platform design of Facebook and Instagram. Under the terms of the agreement, Meta must implement a list of safety measures for minors: a two-hour combined time limit for both Facebook and Instagram, more advanced age verification, restricted use between midnight and 6 a.m. and hidden public “like” counts and beauty filters by default.
There are also several precautions in place. The time limits will not be able to be circumvented by signing onto different accounts or devices, and a parent must provide formal consent in order to override any of these features.
“I love Instagram,” said sophomore Anaya Bhalla. “A lot. I love social media and I love connecting with my friends on those platforms … if they put time limits on Instagram, that would suck.”
The state attorneys and Meta officials faced off in the U.S. District Court for Northern California. Meta was presumed not to be liable for harmful content posted on its platforms due to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, so the states built their case instead against the structure and algorithms of the platforms. Their legal strategy partially relied on leaked corporate documents, which revealed that Meta was aware of how their platforms caused sleep deprivation, anxiety and depression among teens.
Meta’s implementation of several terms was contingent upon competing platforms TikTok and YouTube adopting the same restrictions. The two-hour time limit will be specifically restricted to one-hour each for Instagram and Facebook and night usage will be limited from the longer timeframe of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. if the other companies implement the limitations. Moreover, 30% of the total $17.1 billion will be withheld until wider implementation occurs and similar fines are paid by TikTok and YouTube.
Greg Moretti, biology and Advanced Placement environmental science teacher was contacted to be a juror on the trial, but was turned down the night before it was scheduled to occur. He believes it was because of his experience as an educator.
“As a teacher, I responded [to the defense team] that I see the impacts of social media use on education every single day,” Moretti said. “If students are distracted in my class, they’re on their phones, getting notifications from social media apps.”
A study by Springer Nature highlights that out of 1,360 high school students surveyed, 59% of them spent more than three hours on social media daily, while 68% of them didn’t believe they were influenced by social media.
An article published by the Cureus Journal of Medical Science found that teenage brains were highly susceptible to social media addiction, as algorithms designed by machine learning models create highly personalized feeds, which can be described as “loops of desire.” These loops happen when the brain’s reward systems are targeted by algorithms, causing a release in dopamine and a following desire for another dopamine source.
“[Social media] constantly gives new forms of entertainment,” said sophomore Ghassan Jabri. “A lot of the time you can watch a reel and say, ‘I’m only going to watch a few,’ but since it has new points of entertainment with every reel, it just hooks you in. It makes you always feel interested in what’s next.”
Moretti notes that this difficulty in putting the phone down stems from the underdeveloped brains of young people.
“Part of the problem with younger people is that their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed yet,” Moretti said. “That is the decision-making part of our brain. It’s harder for people who don’t have a fully developed prefrontal cortex to recognize that they need to get off of an app when they should … When [people] design these things to hijack young brains, it’s not the young people who are at fault, it’s our biology. It’s the way our brains are wired, so I feel like we need these limitations.”
California lawmakers are beginning to crack down harder on social media platforms. On Sept. 10, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills prohibiting platforms from employing features like infinite scrolling and autoplay to users under 16. Newsom criticized the relatively small amount of money Meta spent in the settlement compared to tech industry revenues. These new bills establish penalties of up to $1 million per affected child for social media companies found liable for certain negligible harm.
Some students view the limits on social media platforms as excessive.
“I don’t think [social media] should be too restricted or [be] controlled too much because kids should have some liberty,” said sophomore Angel Miranda. “If not, it just makes the kid miserable.”
Bhalla believes that Instagram’s reminder feature, which encourages users to think about how they spend time on social media, is a sufficient enough limitation.
“A healthy relationship would be not putting time limits on [social media], but having self control to restrict it when you want to,” Bhalla said. “You already have your daily reminders to get off the app. So you already have it in your mind that you should be able to choose what’s right for you.”
There are also positive benefits to social media. A Pew Research Center study found that 74% of U.S. teens use social media to maintain connections with their peers.
”There are some dangerous parts, but Instagram also has a big community for friends to talk with each other, for people to post on their stories to let people know what they’re doing or just keeping in contact with friends,” Jabri said.
As these changes by Meta will be rolled out within a year, students will find a two-hour time limit across both Facebook and Instagram, more advanced methods to verify age and limited night usage. Although many teenagers believe these regulations may be too restrictive, Meta is mandated to follow through with these conditions, with the implementations being verified by a third party auditor.
