By admin 
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Tech giant Meta has settled a lawsuit that alleged its social media platforms are addictive to young people.
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The company, which previously denied the allegations, promised to pay North Carolina up to $645 million for mental health services and make changes to Meta apps — Facebook & Instagram.
In the overall $17-billion-dollar agreement, 29 states accused Meta of contributing to a crisis in youth mental health.
Mental health experts emphasize that moderation is key to reducing the potential damaging effects of kids spending lots of time online, on social media, and the content they view.
Pew Research Center reports that 48% of teens now say social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022.
Only 11% say the effect is mostly positive.
For parents watching their children scroll, swipe and refresh, the question has often been: Where does normal screen time end; and where does potentially compulsive, addictive and harmful use begin?
“I’m probably on it for at least 8 hours,” high school student Patricia Myers said.
“As a parent, I think it’s great to kind of limit the social media activity,” Rob Corbin said. “But as kids, obviously, with increased schoolwork that they’re required to do things like that, streaming movies. I see both sides, but $645 million towards North Carolina is great.”
The following changes are part of the Meta agreement,
- A daily time limit for Instagram and Facebook use of two hours.
- Disabling Instagram and Facebook between midnight at 6 a.m.
- Turning off data for users on who or how many people have liked or reacted to their posts.
- Disabling Instagram and Facebook push notifications during approximate school hours.
- Before users reach the time limit, they’ll get prompts every 15 minutes asking if they still want to keep scrolling. After an hour and after 90 minutes, they’ll get prompts suggesting they take breaks.
- Meta has also agreed to improve its age-verification process
Parents will be able to change the settings, including loosening them.
The changes are expected to roll out in the next few months.
Mental-health professionals say the issue is not simply whether social media is good or bad.
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“Social media, it can be a really positive tool for spreading information, for connecting people across states and countries,” National Alliance on Mental Health North Carolina (NAMI NC) Marketing & Communications Director Amy Brundle said.
The bigger concern is how time-addictive is it.
“Everything needs to be in moderation in order for us to be healthy,” Brundle added. “And so, you know, some of these steps could potentially go a long way towards teaching our youth and our young adults that smartphones can be used in moderation and that we can still be mentally healthy and happy if we know when to put the phone down.”
“So do you think they’re addictive?” James asked high school student Khady Secka said. “I feel like it depends on the discipline you have as a person.”
Facebook, once the dominant social network for young people, is now used by only about 3 in 10 teens.
Instead, most say they have a tough time limiting their time on more popular platforms like TIK TOK, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube where they stream shows and movies and forgaming according to Pew Research Center; not to mention the growing numbers of teens making big bucks online pitching products.
“Some of these apps do take away your mental health,” Myers said. “But I personally (say) there shouldn’t be no usage or no restrictions on it. I feel like every kid has their own boundaries on the phone.”
Mental health professionals often emphasize that parents watching their child’s behavior offline may be more mentally healthy than watching the clock when kids are online.
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North Carolina is also suing Snapchat and TikTok-maker ByteDance.
Those cases are ongoing.