UAE parents welcome Meta’s $18 billion child-safety deal and midnight social media shutdown: ‘Pressure is off us’

Has the doomscrolling finally met its doom?

It might just seem that the prayer of many parents has finally been answered: Meta’s landmark settlement might just signal a significant shift. Should tech companies finally shoulder more of the responsibility for protecting children?

For years, the responsibility for managing children's social-media use has largely landed at the feet of parents: Set the screen-time limits, confiscate the phone at bedtime, monitor what they watch, and somehow compete with algorithms designed to keep users scrolling.

Now, Meta is agreeing to take a far more active role. The social-media giant has agreed to pay as much as $18 billion and introduce sweeping changes to how children use its apps in a landmark nationwide settlement in the US. The agreement comes more than a week into a major trial in Oakland, California, where four state plaintiffs alleged that Meta’s Facebook and Instagram apps purposefully addicted children and teenagers, contributing to anxiety and depression across a generation of young people.

Among the proposed changes: Facebook and Instagram would be blocked between midnight and 6am, notifications would be switched off by default during school hours, and teenagers would be limited to two hours of use a day unless a verified parent overrides the restriction. Meta has also agreed to use age-assurance technology to identify users who are too young to be on its platforms.

This has just hit close to home, for UAE parents, even if the US settlement doesn’t automatically changes the rules here. At least, some feel, there’s an attempt to address a rather blue-glowing problem that parents face everywhere.

For Dubai-based Nicole Akalla, the idea of platforms enforcing rules themselves comes as a 'huge relief'. She believes children shouldn't be staring at glowing screens in the middle of the night, when their minds are supposed to be resting. "Having the app itself lock down takes the pressure off families, because right now, parents are left carrying the entire mental load of trying to police late-night habits."

The potential two-hour limit is equally appealing, she says, because it removes parents from the role of a scheming villain. "When the app shuts off on its own, it's just a rule of the game rather than mom or dad constantly nagging, which usually stops the daily arguments before they start."

Akalla doesn't believe the responsibility should rest solely with families. "It has to be both, but tech companies have been shifting all the responsibility onto parents for years. Raising children is hard enough without having to fight billion-dollar algorithms that are literally engineered by experts to keep kids hooked. Platforms need to step up and build safer defaults."

The nightly fights would be hopefully reduced, and that's something Sharrah Khilawala agrees with. "There's really no reason a child needs to be scrolling through Instagram at 2am. Sleep should win that battle. If platforms can help parents put sensible boundaries in place, particularly overnight, I'm all for it."

She also believes the technology could ease the burden of daily policing. "I think it would help. There may be some negotiation at home initially because children are excellent negotiators when screen time is involved! But having a limit built into the platform takes some of that daily policing away from parents."

Still, Khilawala says the bigger challenge may have less to do with whether children understand the rules, and more to do with whether parents can consistently enforce them. "We do have boundaries around screen time, but I think the biggest challenge for any parent is consistency. Real life gets in the way, work calls, busy days, weekends, and sometimes the rules become a little more flexible than intended. The technology helps, but parents still must hold the line."

For Chris Baby, a mother of three children aged six, four, and one, the debate comes down to an important distinction: Social media screen time should not be lumped in with general screen time.

Baby supports the new rules without reservation. "I'm a mom of three — two girls aged 6 and 4, and a one-year-old boy, and personally, I feel children this young should not be on social media at all." She sees no real need for access to social media at night, even for older children. "Sleep is extremely important for their development, and having restrictions built into the apps would also take some of the pressure off parents."

She would support limits on social media, but is careful not to conflate them with limits on screens more broadly. "In today's world, screens are almost unavoidable because even schools and educational institutions rely on apps, online learning platforms and digital study materials."

For her, the issue isn't how long a child spends on a screen, but what they're using it for. "Educational screen time serves a purpose. Social media is different, and personally I feel two hours of social media would still be far too much for a young child."

Her own children are still too young to have experienced the effects of independent social media use, but she has already seen how easily children become absorbed by screens. Her bigger concern isn't screen time itself, but what children encounter once they're online, a stream of curated images of wealth, beauty, and comparison. "At such an impressionable age, I worry that this can shape the way children understand happiness, success and even their own self-worth before they are mature enough to process it properly."

Khilawala has noticed something similar at home, even without seeing a major negative impact so far. "Thankfully, I haven't seen a major impact, but I do notice how quickly screens can absorb their attention. 'Five more minutes' can very easily become 30, and suddenly Mum calling their name becomes background noise! For me, it's about creating healthy habits before it becomes a bigger issue."

Baby already uses parental controls and tries to monitor what her children watch, but says there's one weakness no household system can fully solve: consistency. "The biggest challenge is consistency. On weekends, holidays or busy days, screen time can easily increase. Another challenge is that screens cannot simply be removed altogether anymore because schools themselves use digital platforms for homework and learning. So as parents, we have to find a balance between necessary educational use and recreational screen time."

She sees the responsibility as shared, yet, the final say rests with parents. Platforms, she argues, are designed to keep people engaged for as long as possible and children are especially vulnerable to that design. "I think stronger age restrictions, safer default settings and better controls over what children can access should be built into the platforms from the beginning."

There is no escaping technology; its grip on daily life is iron-clad What worries her most is children being exposed to materialism and unrealistic lifestyles while their personalities and values are still forming. "I would personally prefer to keep my children away from social media for as long as reasonably possible."

Alison Rego has taken a more hands-on approach to navigating social media with her child, including seeking outside support when she felt she needed it. She describes going down a "rabbit hole" of concern before realising she needed help, eventually working with a coach for six weeks to realign her approach to modern parenting in the context of social media, set boundaries, and build a strategy for her daughter, who was a pre-teen at the time.

She welcomes greater intervention from tech companies and governments, but insists it can't replace what happens at home. "Parental controls and screentime limits are necessary, and we use them in our home. It is also good to see social media companies and governments taking greater initiatives around child safety and responsible digital use. It is an important step forward."

Children will always push back, she says, and that pushback will be uncomfortable. But ultimately, the responsibility to set boundaries and hold them, sits with the parent. Her advice to parents struggling with the issue: Don't be afraid to ask for help. "Sometimes having someone help you understand a different approach can make all the difference in finding a method that works for both you and your child."

Dr Sneha John, psychologist, Medcare Camali Clinic Jumeirah, points out that the number of hours a child has already spent on screens matters. A child who has spent half the day on their phone has already had significant exposure, and if they're wired to check their phone at night, they would be more restless and distraught as a result.

That points to a deeper issue, she says: fragile boundaries. "You need to shape the environment first. You need to set the rules from the beginning, and not just for the children, the adults need to follow the rules too. For instance, if it's family time, let them know that phones are not allowed. Everyone keeps the phones away, so children don't feel singled out."

Behavioural specialist Laura Brennan, from the Inclusive Athlete, a free platform for parents with resources tool kits webinars, adds that the subject deserves more nuance than a simple verdict. Meta's payout brings clear benefits, better sleep, more regulation, and space for children to focus on building relationships. But it also comes with a cost: an abrupt disruption to routines children have built their lives around. "They are tuned to it. They have a certain routine and structure." Remove that suddenly, she says, and the question becomes: What fills the gap?

That, in turn, raises a harder question, how to build real boundaries and a workable system around them. Her answer: involve children in the decisions, make them feel part of the process, and be clear about why consequences exist.

Sabine Muzaffar is more sceptical that a midnight cutoff will change much on its own. Children, she says, are always looking for ways to stay online, restrictions may just make them more resourceful. "I have an 18-year-old, 16-year-old and an 8-year-old, and I know the trouble with my 8-year-old, who can't leave the screen." This generation, she says, was born into technology, and there's no escaping that reality. The real work lies in how families navigate it, through firm rules and by making children feel genuinely involved in the process.

Finally, there's an acknowledgment that no single fix, corporate or parental was ever going to be enough on its own. Meta's settlement may remove some of the friction from nightly battles over bedtime and screen limits, but as every parent and expert here makes clear, a midnight lockout cannot substitute for the harder, ongoing work of building trust, routine, and judgment at home. The algorithms may finally be facing consequences. The real test, though, was always going to be what happens in the space technology leaves behind, and that responsibility, still lands on the adults in the room.