Meta will soon restrict minors' use of Instagram and Facebook as part of its 17-billion-dollar settlement with U.S. states. Along with other limitations, minors using Instagram or Facebook will be cut off after two hours of use.
Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, a professor of public health at WashU Medicine, said she is optimistic that these restrictions will help the next generation of social media users.
However, Cavazos-Rehg said she is concerned teenagers or other users who have aged out of the restrictions and are already addicted won’t see the same health benefit. Age verification can be worked around, and unless other platforms join the settlement, social media users can just switch to another platform.
“It sounds like there’s some freedom on how these funds can be spent, but there’s also, I would think, some responsibility to use these funds to help those individuals, those families ... people who have been deeply affected by these platforms,” Cavazos-Rehg said.
Cavazos-Rehg said investing in preventative measures, intervention efforts, and increasing psychiatric clinicians would be among the most effective in treating youth social media-related mental health issues.
No official decision has been made on what Missouri will do with its $100 million in settlement money, but the state’s attorney general communications director has said it will likely go towards public messaging on safe social media practices.
Based on the outcomes of previous public messaging campaigns, Cavazos-Rehg doubts solely distributing information about the risks of social media addiction would be helpful as a preventative measure. Historical research found DARE — Drug Abuse Resistance Education — to be ineffective.
“Because everyone knows these platforms are addictive and that everyone is excessively using them,” Cavazos-Rehg said. “So, how would it help to send the message that these platforms are harmful when it’s something that’s already pretty obvious?”
Before disbursing the money, Cavazos-Rehg hopes the state will work with experts to decide how those funds are eventually used.
As states decide how to spend the money, Meta will be busy implementing the several restrictions laid out in its settlement. While some of those restrictions in the settlement are up to interpretation, Saint Louis University law professor Anders Walker said how well Meta implements them could protect the company from bankruptcy.
“Because there’s so many millions of kids on these platforms, they’re looking at cascading lawsuits,” Walker said. “And there’s no way even Mark Zuckerberg can pay that. He’s going to do everything he can to calm people down.”
If other platforms like Snapchat and TikTok join the settlement, Missouri would receive an additional 50 million dollars in payouts. Walker said it’s in other social media companies' best interest to change their policies so they can dismiss potential similar lawsuits as frivolous.
“The other problem is juries are probably older folks, and they’re not on these platforms. And all they hear is that they’re bad,” Walker said. “It’s going to be hard to find a group of 12-year-olds who love Snapchat (for a jury).”
