LIHU‘E — A new federal bill seeking to limit the social media use of youths was introduced on Wednesday, and legislators say it will help protect kids from the harmful impacts of social media.
The measure, known as the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators: Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), and Katie Britt (R-Alabama).
The group released a press release on the bill’s introduction on Wednesday, detailing how the legislation would limit children’s use of social media.
The bill would ban children under 13 from creating social media accounts and require parental consent for 13-through-17-year-olds. It would also prevent social media companies, such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, from feeding content using algorithms to users under the age of 18.
In order to enforce these measures, social media companies would be required to “undertake rigorous age verification measures based on the latest technology” and users under 18 would need to have a guardian’s permission to create an account. The bill would also “create a pilot project for a government-provided age verification system that platforms can choose to use.”
Cotton said the bill would “put parents back in control of what their kids experience online.”
“From bullying and sex trafficking to addiction and explicit content, social media companies subject children and teens to a wide variety of content that can hurt them, emotionally and physically. Just as parents safeguard their kids from threats in the real world, they need the opportunity to protect their children online,” he said in a statement.
In the press release, the senators attributed social media use to a cause of the country’s mental health crisis, with adolescents, especially girls, being the most impacted.
It cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which found that 57 percent of high school girls and 29 percent of high school boys felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021. Furthermore, 22 percent of all high school students reported seriously considering attempting suicide in the preceding year.
The release also noted that overall screen use among youths 8 and up increased by 17 percent from 2019 to 2021, with tweens using screens for five hours and 33 minutes per day and teens using screens for eight hours and 39 minutes per day.
Schatz and the other legislators emphasized the necessity of the bill in order to address the clear link between social media use and poor mental health.
“The growing evidence is clear: social media is making kids more depressed and wreaking havoc on their mental health. While kids are suffering, social media companies are profiting. This needs to stop,” said Schatz in a statement.
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Emma Grunwald, reporter, can be reached 808-652-0638 or
egrunwald@thegardenisland.com.
