Early last month, in a courtroom in New Mexico, a judge ordered Meta—owner of Facebook and Instagram—to pay a $567 million penalty for the addiction and mental health issues its platforms have caused teens. Of that amount, some $420 million will be directed toward “treatment services” for kids who have been harmed owing to their use of Facebook and Instagram—in other words, therapy. (Meta is appealing the ruling.)
Three weeks later, Meta reached an enormous settlement with 47 states and the District of Columbia in which it agreed to pay up to $18 billion to resolve similar charges. The attorneys general who brought the case are framing it as historic relief for a generation in crisis. While the settlement calls on Meta to build safeguards for teens and gives parents more control over how their kids use the company’s social media platforms, it too will direct large amounts of money toward counseling—i.e., therapy.
But is therapy really the best way to deploy some of the settlement money? As the co-founder and senior fellow, respectively, at the Center for Teen Flourishing (CTF), our answer is blunt: no.
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