Surgeon general says minors’ social media use is causing parental stress

This is the first of two articles on states’ efforts to regulate social media. The second article will look at the mechanisms states are using to enforce their social media laws and how they are being received.

Parents are overwhelmed and burnt out, according to a new advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. An array of “heightened stressors” are to blame, he warned, including the usual culprits of financial strain, too many demands on time and good old-fashioned worry. But one challenge stuck out: social media.

“There are new stressors that previous generations didn’t have to consider,” Murthy wrote. “These include the complexity of managing social media, parents’ concerns about the youth mental health crisis, and an epidemic of loneliness that disproportionately affects young people and parents, just to name a few.”

Murthy’s advice? In an op-ed he penned to accompany the advisory on Wednesday, the surgeon general said that to make parenting sustainable, policymakers must address the “pervasive sources of anguish and worry that parents are often left to manage on their own.”

For roughly the last two years now, state governments have been doing just that. Curbing young people’s use of social media has emerged as a bipartisan issue that both red and blue states are attempting to address. 

Those legislative efforts have come in conservative states like Arkansas and Utah, and more liberal peers like California and New York. Even Congress has gotten in on the issue with the Senate passing restrictions in July. But it has been in statehouses where the most progress has been made.

The push to limit social media use among young people comes amid a youth mental health crisis, which the surgeon general issued an advisory for in 2021. Several studies have documented increases in adolescent loneliness and depression.

“The internet has become a dark alley for our children where predators target them and dangerous social media leads to higher rates of depression, self-harm and even suicide,” Florida House Speaker Paul Renner said in a March statement after the legislature passed its online protection bill. “[Florida] leads the way in protecting children online as states across the country fight to address these dangers.”

Just this year alone, legislators in at least 30 states have introduced more than 300 bills seeking to restrict minors’ use of social media. The laws that have passed do this through several key approaches: specifying design requirements, protecting data privacy, and dictating age limits and other restrictions to encourage healthy social media habits.

“Age-Appropriate Design” Sets the Stage

California kicked off states’ efforts to regulate social media in 2022, as lawmakers there advanced and eventually approved the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. 

The law requires social media platforms to set their privacy settings to their most stringent by default for children, conduct impact assessments on data protection, provide privacy information in easy-to-understand language for young users and limit certain targeted ad campaigns to children.

Platforms also are banned from engaging in so-called dark patterns, which can allegedly trick users into providing their personal information or otherwise act in a way that could harm them. Social media companies also are banned from collecting minors’ precise geolocation data.

This year, Maryland followed suit and passed its own age-appropriate design code, which is largely modeled after the Golden State’s pioneering law. Other states have introduced similar legislation to varying degrees of success. Vermont attempted to get its own code signed into law, but the effort died in May.

Lawmakers appear unbowed by the legal action California’s code has been subject to. Attorney General Rob Bonta has pledged repeatedly to continue defending the law, even after a federal court blocked its implementation last year to allow the lawsuits against it to proceed. Maryland’s effort may also be subject to a legal challenge.

“In enjoining the law, the court got this one wrong: The Age-Appropriate Design Code is about protecting children’s data, not limiting free speech,” Bonta said in a statement at the time.

Protecting Data Privacy and “Addictive” Algorithms

Protecting young people’s personal data is a hallmark of states’ social media regulations. New York’s Child Data Protection Act bans platforms and devices from collecting, using, sharing or selling minors’ personal data, unless they receive informed consent or it is strictly necessary for the purpose of the website.

The law updated existing child online privacy laws that were last tweaked over two decades ago. New York Assemblymember Nily Rozic said in a statement that the state acted to keep residents’ “safety and privacy at the forefront,” and prevent “unchecked data collection.”

Utah has similar provisions banning social media platforms from collecting personal information and has very specific ways for protecting privacy, which include banning Utah minors from direct messaging a user they are not friends with on the platform and banning the display of advertising, among others. Default privacy settings must be set to prioritize maximum safety, too.

New York’s social media laws are unique in that they specifically mention regulating the algorithms that social media platforms are built on and restricting them for users under 18. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said algorithm-driven news feeds have fed young people’s addiction to social media, including with features like “infinite scroll” that mean the flow of content never ends.

Minors in the Empire State would still be able to use social media, search for topics and subscribe to creators they are interested in.

“Young people across the nation are facing a mental health crisis fueled by addictive social media feeds—and New York is leading the way with a new model for addressing the crisis and protecting our kids,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul. “By reining in addictive feeds and shielding kids’ personal data, we’ll provide a safer digital environment, give parents more peace of mind, and create a brighter future for young people across New York.”

Age Limits and Healthy Habits 

Some states have placed direct limitations on social media use, including curfews.

Utah minors will be prevented from using social media between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., once its law goes into effect on Oct. 1, although parents have the option to remove that requirement and set a limit on the number of hours per day their child can use a platform.

New York has also set time limits on usage. Children there would be banned from accessing social media between midnight and 6 a.m. without parental consent.

Florida goes even further than most on age limitations, as it mandates that social media companies delete any account held by someone aged 14 or younger. Platforms would have 90 days to delete those accounts. Anyone aged 14 or 15 would need parental consent to hold an account.

Colorado, meanwhile, has stood apart. Its law, which passed in its most recent legislative session, looks to encourage “healthier social media use by youth,” rather than regulate the industry with a heavy hand. The law requires the state’s department of education to maintain a resource library on the mental health impacts of social media on young people, and “strongly encourages” the department to include programs on the effects of “problematic technology use” on minors’ physical and mental health.

Come Jan. 1, 2026, social media platforms will be required to provide users with information about the platforms and their potential mental health impacts, especially on developing brains. Those notifications, which look to encourage greater digital literacy, would be displayed for users who have spent at least one hour on social media in a 24-hour period, or use it between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

“We’re working to encourage healthier social media habits among our youth by giving them the tools they need to make smart decisions about their own social media usage and prompting our kids to take a break from their phones,” State Rep. Judy Amabile, a Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation, said in a March statement after it passed the House.