Britt helps introduce legislation to shield children from harmful effects of social media

Sen. Katie Britt is continuing her fight to protect America’s children from the ongoing, mental health crisis currently taking place across the country.

As part of that push, on Thursday Britt joined three of her fellow Senators in introducing the Kids Off Social Media Act. If enacted, the bipartisan legislation would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media platforms and prevent social media companies from feeding algorithmically-targeted content to users under the age of 17.

“There is no doubt that our country is facing a growing youth mental health crisis that is inextricably tied to the rise of social media usage by children and teenagers,” said Britt (R-Montgomery). “Families are being devastated and futures are being destroyed in every corner of our nation. I’ll continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact the commonsense, age-appropriate solutions needed to tackle this generational challenge.”

The Kids Off Social Media Act in greater detail would:

• Prohibit children under the age of 13 from creating or maintaining social media accounts,
consistent with the current practices of major social media companies;
• Prohibit social media companies from pushing targeted content using algorithms to users under the age of 17;
• Provide the FTC and state attorneys general authority to enforce the provisions of the bill;
• Require schools to block and filter social media on federally funded networks.

The other Senators who helped to bring the bill forward were Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

According to multiple studies, no age demographic has been more affected by the ongoing mental health crisis in the United States than children, particularly young girls.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, for example, found that 57 percent of high school girls and 29 percent of high school boys felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, with 22 percent of all high school students—and nearly a third of high school girls — reporting they had seriously considered attempting suicide in the preceding year.

From 2019 to 2021, overall screen use among teens and tweens (ages 8 to 12) increased by 17 percent, with tweens using screens for five hours and 33 minutes per day and teens using screens for eight hours and 39 minutes. The U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory last year, calling for new policies to set and enforce age minimums and highlighting the importance of limiting the use of features, like algorithms, that attempt to maximize time, attention, and engagement.

Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.