For Teens on Social Media, the Jury Is Still Out, But the Judgment Is Already In
The effect of social media on children has been at the center of recent debate, with multiple bills at the federal and state level and recent advisories from the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Psychological Association (APA). Despite a lack of scientific consensus on how social media affects children, lawmakers have been rushing to implement policies that would, in many cases, create more problems than they solve.
Concerns over how technology use will affect children and adolescents are nothing new. From the more familiar concerns over television, video games, music, smartphones, and social media to historical concerns over radio, the printing press, pocket novels, and writing, the cycle of panic over new technological developments and their impact on youth is age-old and unlikely to stop. That is not to say concerns are wholly unwarranted. Some people are bound to use any new communication medium to distribute content that is inappropriate for minors.
Social media platforms have different approaches to ensuring graphic or adult content is not widely accessible to underaged users. These approaches include banning certain types of content, including using warning labels, and only showing graphic or adult content to users who are 18 or older. Most, if not all, major platforms have policies prohibiting glorifying harmful behaviors such as suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders, as well as policies aimed at addressing online harassment and cyber-bullying.
Minors are also potentially vulnerable to online exploitation. Many parents monitor their children’s digital behavior in order to keep their children safe online: 60 percent of parents of 13- to 17-year-olds check their teens’ social media profiles. In addition, some social media platforms have taken measures to prevent online exploitation. For example, Instagram restricts direct messages (DMs) between adults and teens who do not follow them, displays a safety notice on suspicious DMs to teens, and encourages teens to make their accounts private when they sign up.
Another area of concern, the effects of social media on teens’ mental health, is the subject of the APA’s May 2023 health advisory, which states that, “Using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.” It stresses the importance of social media for social support, particularly for teens struggling with mental illness and teens from marginalized communities, including LGBTQ teens. Several of the advisory’s recommendations are in line with social media platforms’ existing policies against harmful and illegal content. The advisory also recommends adult monitoring of early adolescents’ social media use and increased autonomy for older adolescents, which is at odds with Utah’s new law that gives parents full control over their teens’ social media use. Finally, the advisory calls for more research into the positive and negative effects of social media on teens.
The Surgeon General’s advisory on “Social Media and Youth Mental Health” also acknowledges that social media has both positive and negative impacts on children and teens, and highlights the lack of research-backed consensus on the subject. However, not all of its recommendations reflect this lack of consensus, nor do many of the current efforts to protect children on social media, including age-related restrictions.
Some proposed or recently enacted laws, including Utah’s new social media law, would mandate age verification on social media. Others, including a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), would set a national minimum age for social media of 16. Whereas the APA’s advisory acknowledges the difficulty in establishing an exact age at which it is appropriate for children to begin using social media, the Surgeon General’s advisory recommends “strengthening and enforcing age minimums” for social media use.
Unfortunately, with current technology, it is impossible to verify a user’s age with complete accuracy without asking the user to provide a form of identification, which is what Utah’s law requires. This not only violates user privacy by mandating that social media platforms collect and store their personal information, it also bars individuals without a form of government-issued identification from using social media. Furthermore, as the APA’s advisory reflects, there is a lack of evidence to prove whether setting the minimum age for social media use to 16 would benefit younger teens.
Laws designed to protect children should follow the scientific consensus and research-backed recommendations from organizations such as the APA. Instead of passing new age restrictions, state lawmakers should include social media literacy in school curriculums, and federal lawmakers should outlaw cyberbullying and provide more funding for research into the positive and negative effects of social media on children and teens. Congress should also mandate states implement electronic forms of identification (as part of obtaining a driver’s license or other form of ID) that would enable non-invasive online age verification and fund the development and research of age verification technology using artificial intelligence. These measures would avoid the pitfalls of many of the current proposals to protect children on social media.
