Three years ago, dozens of states jointly sued Meta, alleging it had designed its technology “to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare” young users. At stake, the lawsuit said, was no less than the “mental and physical health of our nation’s youth.”

In 2023, the legal theory of the lawsuit — that consumers, and especially young people, need protection from Meta’s platforms much in the way they need protection from tobacco products — was unusual. Now, it lines up with the popular mood about social media and has become something rare in America: a bipartisan rallying cry. Negotiations about screen time (with your kids and with yourself) are now a burden of modern life. Schools across the country are trying to enforce “bell to bell” phone bans. In 2010, The Social Network posed the question, “Is this Facebook guy maybe sort of bad?” This year, The Social Reckoning will answer, “Yeah, he really is!” Whatever else you think our biggest political and social problems are, there is a good chance you think your phone, and the apps on it, has something to do with them.

In August, when Meta reached a massive settlement with 47 states, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion, it was considered social media’s big-tobacco moment. An industry in need of reform, intervention, and perhaps even retribution was getting its due. The settlement required the company to make changes to its products for young users: an age-verification system; parent-controlled time limits; nighttime-usage restrictions. There would be new notification controls and “productive pauses” for under-18s. Options for “non-algorithmic” feeds, without personalized suggestions, would be added to teen accounts.

But there are reasons to be skeptical this will all lead to rapid, major change. Meta’s concessions for under-18 users are limited in scope and will almost certainly be implemented in ways that make them less effective than they sound. By default, usage time limits, curfews, hidden like counts, and........

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