Arkansas announced Wednesday, August 26, it has joined states and territories across the U.S. in a landmark $17.1 billion legal settlement with Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, over claims that the company endangered children through addictive algorithms on its social media platforms. Arkansas is expected to receive at least $172 million under the settlement.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin first filed a lawsuit against Meta in March 2023, alleging that the company violated the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by misleading minors and their parents about its social media platforms’ addictive nature. The settlement agreement includes 51 attorneys general from U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia.
Portions of the settlement funds may be used be used for youth mental health, after-school, and crisis intervention programs in Arkansas and the other participating states. The agreement also requires Meta to implement a series of changes across its platforms to help protect children. The settling states and an independent auditor will regularly assess the implementation of the following platform changes:
- A default two-hour daily time limit across Meta platforms Instagram and Facebook for teen users ages 13 to 17, with mandatory notice after 15 minutes of continuous use and pauses after 60 and 90 minutes of cumulative daily use.
- “Nighttime blocks” restricting teen users ages 13 to 17 access between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.
- Push notifications disabled by default on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
- Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the ages of young users.
- Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content that promotes eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
- Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens.
Arkansas has filed multiple similar lawsuits against social media platforms in recent years, including suits against YouTube parent company Google, TikTok, Snapchat, and Roblox. Following Wednesday’s announcement, Meta issued a statement calling on TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar standards to those agreed upon in the settlement.
Youth Mental Health Trends in Arkansas
Mental health diagnoses among Arkansas youth have steadily increased in recent years. An ACHI analysis of healthcare claims for adolescents ages 10 to 17 found that the percentage of adolescents with anxiety diagnoses in any care settings more than doubled from 3.96% in 2016 to 8.66% in 2023. Diagnoses for depression increased from 3.99% to 6.35% over the same period. Arkansas adolescents ages 10 to 17 who were diagnosed with suicidal ideation or attempt increased from 0.94% in 2016 to 2.02% in 2023.
A 2024 data brief from the Health Resources and Services Administration noted that 20.3% of U.S. adolescents ages 12 to 17 had a current, diagnosed mental or behavioral health condition in 2023, up from 15% in 2016.
Changes in recorded diagnoses may reflect multiple factors, including increased awareness. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force expanded provider screening guidance in 2009 to include universal depression screening for adolescents ages 12 to 18, and in 2022 it recommended anxiety screening for adolescents ages 8 to 18.
Policy Efforts in Arkansas
In addition to suing social media platforms, Arkansas has passed legislation to address concerns about technology use and its potential effects on youth mental health. For example, Act 122 of 2025, known as the Bell to Bell, No Cell Act, restricts public school students’ personal electronic device use during the school day. The law, which took effect for the 2025-26 school year, cites social media’s harms to academic performance and mental well-being.
In April, a federal judge preliminarily blocked enforcement of Arkansas Act 900 of 2025, which would have restricted social media platforms for users under 16 and required that those platforms verify a user’s age to create a new account.
For more on this subject, visit our Social Media and Youth Mental Health topic page.
