AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Meta, the social media company, has agreed to settle with the states that sued it. Now, the states allege that Meta deliberately designed social media platforms to be addictive for minors. The proposed settlement requires Meta to pay the states up to $17 billion over 10 years and to make some key changes to both Facebook and Instagram to make the platforms safer for kids. Here to tell us more is NPR health correspondent Rhitu Chatterjee. Hi, Rhitu.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK. So what are these specific changes that Meta will have to make for younger users?
CHATTERJEE: So the list of changes is, in fact, substantial. They include setting up a default daily time limit of two hours for users under 18.
CHANG: Wow.
CHATTERJEE: And those restrictions can only be lifted by a parent. There will be a default nighttime block between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. There will be a block on notifications for minors during the nighttime and during school hours, so 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year. There will also be a ban on showing minors how many likes or reactions they have to their posts.
CHANG: Wow. These seems like pretty sweeping changes, right? How are advocates and researchers reacting to this news?
CHATTERJEE: Pretty positively. Here's Julie Scelfo. She's a former journalist who founded a grassroots organization called Mothers Against Media Addiction.
JULIE SCELFO: It was certainly great news to wake up to this morning. And it's an important victory in our fight to hold Big Tech accountable. Meta agreeing to this settlement further shows what was made crystal clear in the other recent trials, which is that the company intentionally designed their algorithms to addict our children.
CHATTERJEE: And in doing so, she says that they contributed to the youth mental health crisis in this country. Now, I should add that Meta has denied the allegations brought by the states and chose to settle the case.
CHANG: Right. They settled. So do we know whether these changes will make these platforms any less addictive?
CHATTERJEE: Well, let's try to understand some of the evidence behind these proposed changes. Let's start with nighttime use and its effect on teens. I spoke with Dr. Jason Nagata. He's a pediatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, and he researches kids' online behaviors. Now, his recent studies show that over half of the teenagers participating in a large study are using their phones between midnight and 4 a.m.
CHANG: Wow.
JASON NAGATA: And the most used app category during this period was social media. So I think that it is likely that most of these teenagers who are using nighttime use are on social media and getting the notifications and kind of distractions that are impairing their sleep.
CHATTERJEE: And we know that sleep is crucial for a teen's brain development and mental health.
CHANG: I mean, sleep is crucial for everyone. So interrupted sleep is a huge problem. I can relate. I imagine that interrupted school hours are also a big problem, yeah?
CHATTERJEE: Exactly. And that's something Nagata has looked into as well. And he and his colleagues found that teenagers are using their cellphones for an average of an hour during school days, and most of that time spent on social media. So he's hopeful that cutting back on nighttime and schooltime social media use, for example, will have a positive impact on teen mental health.
But he also adds that, you know, the devil will be in the details of how Meta goes about making these changes, as the trial revealed some safety features that the company had already put in place for teen accounts. For example, Instagram's Take a Break reminder wasn't as effective as they had hoped. And we also know that teens can and do lie about their age on these platforms. So it's a big question whether Meta gets serious about age verification, which will determine how effective these changes will be.
CHANG: Well, we also know that teenagers do not like to be told what to do.
CHATTERJEE: Right. Yeah.
CHANG: That is NPR health correspondent Rhitu Chatterjee. Thank you so much, Rhitu.
CHATTERJEE: My pleasure, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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