POLICY BRIEF: From Online Harm to Real-Life Opportunity: A North Carolina Framework for Investing Meta Settlement Funds in Afterschool, Summer Learning and Accessible Youth Mental Health Supports

Sep 10, 2026

In August 2026, North Carolina along with 46 other states reached a landmark settlement with Meta over allegations that the company designed Facebook and Instagram to maximize young people’s engagement while knowing that aspects of its platforms could harm youth mental health and well-being. Under the settlement, North Carolina is guaranteed approximately $451 million and could receive up to approximately $645 million, with payments extending through 2035. The settlement is now in effect.

In his initial press release, Attorney General Jeff Jackson called on the North Carolina General Assembly, which will decide how the settlement funds are allocated, to direct these resources into programs and systems that support youth well-being, including afterschool and summer learning programs and other mental health supports. The North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs (NC CAP), North Carolina’s statewide afterschool network, strongly supports this direction and believes the settlement represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make sustained investments in the places, relationships and supports that help young people thrive.

North Carolina has both an urgent need and a significant opportunity.

The state’s youth are experiencing significant mental health challenges. The North Carolina’s 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, conducted by the Healthy Schools initiative of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, shows that approximately three in ten North Carolina high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2025.1 In the same study, nearly 20% of high school students reported poor mental health most/all of the time.2

At the same time, while social media use is down slightly since 2023, more than three in four high school students reported using social media several times a day or more, with 35% reporting that they use social media once an hour or more than once an hour.3 On average, teens spend nearly five hours per day on social media platforms4, with the highest frequency users experiencing negative impacts on their mental health.5 According to a 2023 advisory from the US Surgeon General, adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media are twice as likely to report symptoms of depression and anxiety.6

Young people also lack access to the positive, screen-free environments that can serve as an alternative to excessive digital engagement. In 2025, approximately 188,000 North Carolina children participated in afterschool programs, while another 664,000 children whose families wanted afterschool could not access it.7 Similarly, about half of North Carolina children and youth miss out on summer programs.8 Cost, availability, and transportation are among the largest barriers.9 Nevertheless, North Carolina remains one of only 22 states that does not have a dedicated source of public funding specifically for afterschool and summer programming.10

These types of safe, engaging, real-world opportunities – along with more intensive mental health support for students that need it – are exactly the experiences that children and youth need to prevent and mitigate the harms of social media while protecting and promoting their well-being. In fact, an analysis of 87,000 anonymized Crisis Text Line conversations that occurred from 2019 to 2022, youth in crisis identified need six resources from their communities to help them cope11:

  • Opportunities for social connection
  • Engagement in music, writing, visual, and performing arts
  • Mental health services
  • Exercise and sports programs
  • Books and audiobooks
  • Outdoor spaces and nature

These resources represent a continuum of opportunity from safe, enriching afterschool and summer programs that build connection, belonging, and resilience to trained trusted adults who can identify concerns early and connect youth to increasingly intensive mental health services, including telehealth, in-person care, and crisis response when needed.


Afterschool and summer programs are an especially promising form of prevention that build resiliency and protective factors for students. A 2010 meta-analysis of afterschool programs found that programs designed to build young people’s personal and social skills were associated with improved self-perceptions, school bonding, positive social behaviors, academic performance, and reduced problem behaviors.12 A survey by the National Summer Learning Association of 2,068 youth also found that those participating in structured summer experiences more often reported feeling listened to and less often reported feeling lonely, sad, angry, or unmotivated, while also reporting significantly greater social-emotional growth across 9 of 10 skills measured compared with youth in unstructured summer experiences.13

The terms of the settlement require Meta to implement new, default safety features for teen users ages 13-17 that include a two-hour daily limit on account access; overnight restrictions from midnight to 6 a.m. when millions of teens are using Meta platforms; suspension of push notifications during school hours; prompts encouraging teens to take breaks from continuous scrolling, with harder pauses once teens have been scrolling for more than 60 minutes; and the default removal of visible like and reaction counts that have been shown to have a negative impact on teens’ self-image.14 Meta will provide teens with greater control and protection through a chronological, non-personalized feed option, stronger safeguards against harmful content, private-by-default accounts, and tools to report harmful content with rapid responses. 15 The settlement also requires stronger age-verification measures and efforts to remove children under age 13 from the platforms.16

These increased safeguards will go a long way to measurably prevent harms associated with social media use, however, they do not offer our teens healthy, safe alternatives to screen time, or supportive services when they are needed. The solution must be broader than reducing screen time, and should include a plan to invest settlement dollars in real-life infrastructure for youth well-being – one that gives young people meaningful opportunities to connect with peers and caring adults while ensuring that mental health supports are available when and where they are needed.

Given what we know about young people’s need for in real life (“IRL”) social connection, the impact afterschool and summer learning can have on youth mental health outcomes, and more intensive the mental health needs of a significant number of young people, NC CAP recommends the following framework for use of these and future social media settlement dollars in North Carolina:

  1. Protect and Support Youth Well-Being and Mental Health. Funds should be used to measurably prevent, mitigate, and remediate harms associated with social media use and promote off-screen connection and resilience for children, youth, and young adults.
  2. Establish protected, dedicated funds for positive youth development and youth well-being programs using Meta settlement resources rather than allowing the funds to be absorbed into the state’s general budget or to supplant existing dollars that support youth engagement, well-being, and education.
  3. Significantly expand access to high-quality, screen-free “IRL” alternatives to screens such as afterschool and summer learning programs, specifically by passing the Learning and Enrichment in Afterschool Programs legislation introduced in 2026 (H1139/S954). This would establish a grant program at the state level to help increase access to positive youth development program including afterschool and summer programs learning and enrichment programs; career, workforce, post-secondary readiness, life skills, youth employment, and youth mentoring programs; and youth service, youth leadership, youth organizing, civic engagement, and other youth-led initiatives.
  4. Create an accessible network of mental health services and supports for youth, connected to both school and afterschool and summer programs, including telehealth options, that allow young people to connect with licensed providers in safe, private settings.
  5. Invest in training for in-school and out-of-school-time educators and youth-serving professionals so they can recognize emerging mental health concerns, respond appropriately and connect young people to care.
  6. Center youth, families, educators, clinicians and community organizations in governance, with transparent funding decisions and measurable outcomes.

As we seek to mitigate the harms caused by social media, we are calling for investments in a continuum of programs and services that support youth well-being, including afterschool and summer programs and “third spaces” for young people alongside more accessible mental health supports and training for the adults in young people’s lives who can support them.

North Carolina has an opportunity to turn accountability into opportunity. The state’s response should not simply help young people spend less time online. It should give them more reasons and opportunities to be together in real life, and make sure help is available when they need it.

Endnotes

  1. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. (2025). NC Healthy Schools data: 2025 NC Youth Risk Behavior Survey detail tables. NC Healthy Schools Data (https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/office-teaching-and-learning/programs-and-initiatives/nc-healthy-schools/nc-healthy-schools-data#NCYRBS-3538) ↩︎
  2. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. (2025). NC Healthy Schools data: 2025 NC Youth Risk Behavior Survey detail tables. NC Healthy Schools Data (https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/office-teaching-and-learning/programs-and-initiatives/nc-healthy-schools/nc-healthy-schools-data#NCYRBS-3538) ↩︎
  3. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. (2025). NC Healthy Schools data: 2025 NC Youth Risk Behavior Survey detail tables. NC Healthy Schools Data (https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/office-teaching-and-learning/programs-and-initiatives/nc-healthy-schools/nc-healthy-schools-data#NCYRBS-3538) ↩︎
  4. Defined as “Interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks, including social networking, gaming, virtual worlds, video-sharing sites, and blogs.” National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine. Consensus Study Report Highlights, Social Media and Adolescent Health. December 2023. ↩︎
  5. American Psychological Association. 4.1.2024. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/27396/Highlights_for_Social_Media_and_Adolescent_Health.pdf https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/teen-social-use-mental-health#:~:text=4.8%20hours,day%20on%20these%20three%20apps. ↩︎
  6. Office of the Surgeon General. (2023). Social media and youth mental health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf) ↩︎
  7. Afterschool Alliance. (2025). Afterschool in North Carolina: Programs in demand, but out of reach for many [Fact sheet]. ↩︎
  8. Afterschool Alliance. (2025). The Summer Struggle for Everyday Families: Affording the Opportunities Parents Want for Youth [Fact sheet]. ↩︎
  9. Afterschool Alliance. (2025). Afterschool in North Carolina: Programs in demand, but out of reach for many [Fact sheet]. ↩︎
  10. North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs. (2026. Putting afterschool to work: Empowering families. Strengthening the workforce. Building NC’s future [Fact sheet]. ↩︎
  11. Crisis Text Line, & Common Good Labs. (2024). What do young people in crisis need from their communities? Solutions to the epidemic of depression and suicide among adolescents in the United States. Crisis Text Line. Report PDF (https://www.crisistextline.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/community-resilience-report.pdf) ↩︎
  12. Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., & Pachan, M. (2010). A meta-analysis of after-school programs that seek to promote personal and social skills in children and adolescents. American Journal of Community Psychology, 45(3–4), 294–309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9300-6 ↩︎
  13. Allen, P. J., & Noam, G. G. (2022, November). Youth perspectives on engagement and resilience: A representative study on summer learning. Institute for the Study of Resilience in Youth & National Summer Learning Association. ↩︎
  14. North Carolina Department of Justice. (2026, August 26). Attorney General Jeff Jackson secures up to $645 million for North Carolina in landmark child safety settlement with Meta. North Carolina Department of Justice (https://ncdoj.gov/attorney-general-jeff-jackson-secures-up-to-645-million-for-north-carolina-in-landmark-child-safety-settlement-with-meta/) ↩︎
  15. North Carolina Department of Justice. (2026, August 26). Attorney General Jeff Jackson secures up to $645 million for North Carolina in landmark child safety settlement with Meta. North Carolina Department of Justice (https://ncdoj.gov/attorney-general-jeff-jackson-secures-up-to-645-million-for-north-carolina-in-landmark-child-safety-settlement-with-meta/) ↩︎
  16. North Carolina Department of Justice. (2026, August 26). Attorney General Jeff Jackson secures up to $645 million for North Carolina in landmark child safety settlement with Meta. North Carolina Department of Justice (https://ncdoj.gov/attorney-general-jeff-jackson-secures-up-to-645-million-for-north-carolina-in-landmark-child-safety-settlement-with-meta/) ↩︎
Verified by MonsterInsights