What a $27 million social media settlement could mean for afterschool

In June, Breathitt County Schools, a small rural school district in eastern Kentucky, was slated to begin the first of many lawsuits against social media companies for harming young people’s mental health. The district, having initially filed their lawsuit against the companies back in 2023, alleged that the social media platforms were intentionally designed to be addictive in ways that the companies themselves knew could harm young people’s mental health, resulting in a predictable wave of anxiety, depression, and mental health crises that the district had to address with limited resources.

The highly anticipated trial made national news on May 21^st, with Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube agreeing to a combined payout of $27 million. This is the first settlement or judgment as part of the multidistrict litigation (MDL) 3047, which includes thousands of individual lawsuits with plaintiffs that include 40 state Attorneys General and more than 1400 individual school districts.

This gives us an early signal of the scale of settlement dollars that could become available — and the math points to a significant opportunity.

What $27 million looks like on a per-student basis

Let's put that number in context: Breathitt County Schools serves just under 1,700 young people, making the settlement out to more than $16,000 per student.

Breathitt County is just one of approximately 1,400 school districts that have filed similar lawsuits against social media companies. The average district involved in this litigation enrolls around 3,700 students. If settlements across these districts track anywhere near the Breathitt benchmark, they could total more than $80 billion.

And that's before factoring in the state-level litigation. The MDL includes suits by more than 40 state Attorneys General; when you include those cases, the total potential settlement landscape runs somewhere between $400 billion and $800 billion.

For reference, the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement — which reshaped public health policy for a generation — totaled around $246 billion. The opioid settlements are now $50 billion, with more on the way.

A once-in-a-generation opportunity

We have a chance to make sure that young people benefit from access to more afterschool and summer opportunities as a result of these settlements.. The questions around MDL 3047 are no longer about whether there will be legal payouts, but rather how large they will be and whether they get spent on young people, in ways that actually support their mental health.

That’s why our team here at the Afterschool Alliance is proud to be a founding member of the Fund IRL Coalition, which is working to make sure that as decisions about how to spend the settlement funds are being made, there is a clear, compelling, evidence-based case for where they should go.

What we're asking for

If these cases result in settlements or judgments, the funds should go to programs and services that can help address the harms at issue — offering young people meaningful opportunities to pursue their passions, forge connections with peers and caring adults, and engage with their communities.

Positive youth development is the remedy. We could use these funds to provide access to afterschool and summer learning programs, youth sports, arts, and mentoring opportunities along with embedded mental health services and supports throughout our communities. That money is now potentially on the table. In an amount that could, if directed well, change the trajectory of an entire generation.

The Breathitt County Schools settlement gave us the very first glimpse of the magnitude of what's possible. Now we need to bring advocates, program providers, parents, and young people to the table and ensure that they can help us co-create the services and opportunities their communities need to make sure their young people can thrive