A nearly $17 billion multistate settlement with Meta would cap children's daily Instagram and Facebook use at two hours if a federal court approves the deal.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced the agreement Wednesday, Aug. 26, calling it the largest settlement involving a big tech company. The state expects to receive $516 million over several years, the Bucks County Courier Times reported. That figure could climb to $729 million if TikTok and Snapchat agree to similar platform changes.

The settlement would hit close to home for Central Bucks families as students head back to class. Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvania's adolescents spend more than two hours a day on social media, according to the 2025 Pennsylvania Youth Survey. About 24% scroll for more than four hours daily.

Under the proposed terms, Meta must enforce a combined two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook for children, with mandatory "productive pauses" after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes. Those limits would remain in effect for five years.

Nighttime blocks would cut access from midnight to 6 a.m. Push notifications would be silenced on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year. If Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable terms, the daily cap on each platform drops to 60 minutes for 10 years.

"As a dad, today is personal," Sunday said at the Aug. 26 news conference. "This won't only affect every Pennsylvania child, it will improve the world my son will grow up in."

The deal also requires age-verification measures, stronger safeguards against bullying and content promoting eating disorders, and limits on social comparison features such as beauty filters and visible "like" counts. An independent auditor and the settling states will regularly assess whether the new features work, officials said.

Forty-six other states, U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., joined the case. Attorneys general sued after a bipartisan investigation found Meta designed Instagram's features to addict children while internally documenting the resulting mental health harms and failing to warn parents, according to Sunday's office. Meta has denied the allegations, saying it has worked to protect children on its platforms.

The settlement announcement comes as Bucks County advances its own screen-time restrictions in schools. The Bucks County Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution May 21 creating a $2,000 incentive for each of the county's 13 school districts and three technical high schools to adopt "bell-to-bell" policies restricting mobile devices in classrooms. That resolution also backed state Senate Bill 1014, co-sponsored by state Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D-Bucks), which would mandate a statewide phone-free school day by the 2027-2028 academic year.

Central Bucks West High School already implemented its own cellphone ban during instructional time in the 2025-2026 school year. Christie Besack, a teacher at CB West, said during a Dec. 9, 2025, webinar that the ban set a clear tone for learning and that her test scores rose compared to the prior year, WHYY reported.

Sunday's office also filed suits in August against TikTok in Allegheny County Court and Snap Inc. in Philadelphia County Court, alleging both platforms exposed children to sexual content, drugs and other mature subjects and failed to protect them from compulsive use.

A court hearing date for the Meta settlement has not been announced.