A new bipartisan proposal proposed in the United States Senate proposes to establish a national age limit for social media use across the country.
Anyone under the age of 13 is prohibited from using social media apps like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others.
The Protecting Kids on Social Media bill also suggests that tech companies need to get parents’ consent before creating accounts for teens.
The bill aims to address what experts say is a mental health epidemic fueled by social media.
The bill reads, “Children aged 13 and below would be barred from creating accounts or interacting with other users, though they would still be able to view content without logging into an account, according to the draft text of the legislation”.
The companies would also be prohibited from using teens’ personal information to target them with content or advertising.
However, some exceptions have been made, such as limiting targeted recommendations to minors by depending on other contextual cues.
Speaking on the measure, Hawaii Democratic Senator Brian Schatz, one of the bill’s authors said that Congress urgently needs to safeguard children from the danger of social media.
Mr. Schatz said, “Social media companies have stumbled onto a stubborn, devastating fact. The way to get kids to linger on the platforms and to maximize profit is to upset them – to make them outraged, to make them agitated, to make them scared, to make them vulnerable, to make them feel helpless, anxious and despondent”.
“The bill is a common sense and bipartisan approach to help stop this suffering that has resulted from teens using social media”, Mr. Schatz added.
The bill is the latest effort to protect children’s mental health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021 discovered that 57% of high school girls and 29% of high school boys felt continuously gloomy or hopeless.
Other research has linked social media to an increase in mental health disorders in youth and depression in adults.
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