Teen accounts on Instagram and Facebook now face a two-hour daily time limit, a midnight-to-6 a.m. blackout and muted notifications during school hours under Meta's $18 billion settlement with state attorneys general. At Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, students and staff are already weighing what the restrictions mean.
Counselor Leigh Kleinson told the Churchill Observer in an Oct. 8 feature that some students log extreme screen time. She said she has reviewed usage data with students and found cases of seven hours a day on social media alone.
"So not having access [to social media] at night is important so [teens] can sleep," Kleinson said.
She told the Observer that algorithm-driven feeds pull teens away from face-to-face relationships and can deepen anxiety and low self-esteem.
Meta announced the agreement on Aug. 26 with a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general, according to Meta's official announcement. The deal pays roughly $18 billion over 10 years. About $12.7 billion goes directly to participating states, with the remaining $5.3 billion contingent on YouTube and TikTok adopting similar measures.
Meta did not admit wrongdoing.
Under the settlement, teens receive prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes. Notifications are muted by default between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., except for direct messages and security alerts. Teens can also choose a non-algorithmic feed, turn off autoplay and hide like counts. Cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters are blocked on teen accounts.
A Gallup survey found U.S. teens spend an average of 4.8 hours per day on social media. Churchill senior Eden Shaw, founder of the nonprofit Speak2Youth Advocacy, uses Instagram to market her organization and build professional connections. She told the Observer she supports the new privacy measures but doubts the time limits will change behavior because they are easy to bypass.
Kleinson acknowledged some students see the restrictions as an invasion of privacy. She told the Observer that Meta will need to keep closing loopholes as teens find them, but said the changes protect both physical and mental health.
An independent auditor will test Meta's compliance annually for five years. Most settlement terms remain in place for 10 years, with the time-limit and night-mode features starting at a five-year commitment that extends to a decade if TikTok and YouTube sign on. No Montgomery County Public Schools board action on teen social media policy has been announced.
