Should children under the age of 16 be denied access to social media apps?

Estimated duration: 6-7 minutes

Salt Lake City — Teens and adolescents spend up to nine hours a day scrolling through social media, gaming, online shopping, video chatting and texting on their mobile phones.

And there is growing evidence that screen time is having a negative impact on mental health.

Rep. Chris Stewart, recently nominated bipartisan co-chair, said, “Statistics point to the most distressed, anxious, depressed and tragically suicidal generation of any generation in our history. It is clear that there are a lot of young people out there,” said Congressional Mental Health Caucus.

He said the rise in anxiety and depression could be almost directly correlated to when Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and started marketing it first to girls and then to boys as young as 9. Chinese app TikTok has been described as an “emotional heroine” for young people.

“We just think we have to do something,” he said.

Stewart, a Republican, believes there is a solution to the adolescent mental health crisis. Making it illegal for social media platforms to provide access to children under the age of 16. He plans to introduce legislation to make social media companies responsible for age verification of children. user.

The law won’t replace parents’ decisions about their children’s social media use, but it will help them avoid harm, he said.

“The government is involved in regulating when my children can drink, when they can smoke, when they can drive,” Stewart said. Yes, and we believe governments should help protect them.”

Since 2000, the Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires websites and online services to obtain parental consent before collecting data from children under the age of 13. However, it is rarely enforced. Stewart’s bill essentially raises the age to her 16.

Stewart said he expects social media companies will “hate this” but is willing to take their arrows “if we can do something good here.”

“They know if it’s possible to get someone hooked on social media at the age of 9.

NetChoice, a tech industry group that includes Meta, Google, TikTok and Twitter, says the answer is to educate both parents and children, rather than the “hard-handed” government regulation Stewart is proposing.

Such laws are not only unenforceable, they violate the First Amendment, said Carl Szabo, NetChoice vice president and general counsel.

He also said there is a reason Congress set the age at 13 in federal law. There are emotional and social differences between a 13-year-old and her 15-year-old, who usually can drive, attend high school, and are less dependent on their parents.

“This is well-intentioned. I think parenting in the 21st century is incredibly difficult,” Szabo said of Stewart’s proposal. “Is there anything we can do now? One hundred percent.”

we can’t turn away from it. you can’t ignore it. You can’t ignore them by patting them on the back and saying, “It makes me feel better.”

-manager.Chris Stewart, R-Utah

Szabo noted that legislators in Florida and Indiana are considering legislation to mandate social media education in schools. According to him, the materials will be presented not only to children, but also to their parents.

“First, let’s see how it goes,” he said.

A better approach, Szabo said, is not to try to replace the parent, as California did with the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.

California law, modeled after British standards, requires that the highest privacy setting be turned on by default for minors. It also said online services that target children under the age of 18 should assess the risk of harm to users through potentially harmful messages or exploitation. It is scheduled to come into force in July 2024.

“California intervened between parents and teenagers,” Szabo said.

NetChoice sued California, alleging that the law violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution. “Teenages have First Amendment rights. The Internet has First Amendment rights,” he said.

Stewart said his bill had Democrat co-sponsors and that his first meeting with the White House was encouraging.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week about the “abuse” of big tech at scale, President Joe Biden said Democrats and Republicans could find common ground when it came to privacy, competition and child protection. rice field.

“Millions of young people suffer from bullying, violence, trauma and mental health. We must take responsibility for the experiments that social media companies are conducting on children for profit. ‘ wrote the president.

A Pew Research Center study found that 95% of 13- to 17-year-olds have access to a smartphone.

Between 2009 and 2017, the number of 8th graders using social media daily increased from 46% to 78%, and the time spent online by high school students doubled. Common Sense Media estimates that by 2021, an 8- to 12-year-old will spend five-and-a-half hours a day while her teen, aged 13-18, spends nearly nine hours a day on screen. I was. at Brigham Young University.

A study from two institutes found that teens who spent eight or more hours a day looking at screens were about twice as likely as their peers who spent less time looking at screens.

Anxiety, depression, and teenage suicide have surged over the past decade, especially among girls, since smartphones became ubiquitous around 2010, according to sociologist Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia. and Riley Peterson, an undergraduate student in Religion and Sociology at Baylor College.

Depression has more than doubled, from 12% in 2010 to 26% of teenage girls today. Emergency room visits for self-harm nearly doubled over the same period. Also, teenage girl suicides have reached her highest in 40 years, Wilcox and Riley wrote in her recent Deseret News article.

“You can’t just turn your back on them. You can’t just ignore them. You can’t just pat them on the back and say, ‘I feel better,’ and ignore them,” Stewart said.

Stewart’s bill gives states the power to sue civil lawsuits on behalf of their residents if social media platforms violate regulations.It also gives parents the right to sue on behalf of their children. This allows the Federal Trade Commission to impose fines for violations.

A public school in Seattle recently sued the companies behind Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, blaming the platforms for a significant decline in youth mental health.

Zabo said there’s a simple reason why the social and emotional state of all Americans, not just teenagers, is at an all-time low. It has to do with being locked up for two years,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s like it waved away.”

The only lifeline the children had, he said, was through technology.

“It seems silly to put the blame on the foot of the technology, even though it seems like an easy answer,” Szabo said. “Society goes through this whenever a new technology comes along.”

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Dennis Romboy

Dennis Roboy is an editor and reporter for Deseret News. Over the years, he has covered a variety of topics, including state and local government, social issues, and courts. A native of Utah, Romboy graduated from the University of Utah with a journalism degree. He enjoys cycling, snowboarding and running.