We’re heading to Minnesota for Sunday’s game and while my team and I train hard to beat the Vikings on the field, there’s one place where I have to admit Minnesota has Pennsylvania beat: the state’s commitment to acknowledging the dangers of social media for young people.
If you’ve read my columns before, you know how I feel about social media. Sure, there are some good uses for it, and I try to make it a force for good. But for the most part, I think it’s dangerous. It presents false realities of people’s lives, and in the process makes us feel bad about ourselves. It makes us feel like we’re competing against others and falling short. It makes us feel lonely and isolated.
And even when we know this on a rational level, it’s such a hard habit to break – the companies behind social media have made their product quite literally addictive, fueling the dopamine rush and feeding algorithms that makes us feel like we need more and more. The presence of phones and social media have diluted our society, and our minds. Our focus has been compromised. Our brains have been hijacked. We are in a constant high-alert zone where we feel like we can’t get away.
So I was pretty stoked in June to hear that the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill requiring social media platforms to display mental health warning labels to all users in the state. I’m not a political guy, but I think anyone would have to agree that protecting kids goes beyond politics. And in Minnesota, where the House is equally divided 67-67 between political parties, the bill had bipartisan support.
The bill was introduced by a state rep named Zack Stephenson. Stephenson said in a conversation with The Citizen that he’s been worried about the impact of social media for years. He now has a teen daughter, and is even more aware of the risks that come with constant doomscrolling. “The research is just so overwhelmingly clear that it’s having a negative impact on kids,” he said. “We see increased depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, self-harm, eating disorders. And the amount of time people are spending on social media is just insane – four to eight hours a day is just bananas.”
The presence of phones and social media have diluted our society, and our minds. Our focus has been compromised. Our brains have been hijacked. We are in a constant high-alert zone where we feel like we can’t get away.
He was encouraged when the former Surgeon General wrote an op-ed saying that social media should come with warning labels, just like tobacco and alcohol do. He thinks the analogy between social media and tobacco and alcohol is a powerful one.
“It’s a very similar story, where you have an industry that is benefiting from people’s addiction to a product that’s harmful to human health – and they are not being forthcoming with the public about these dangers,” Stephenson says. “The way that we look back at the ‘50s and ‘60s and go, What the hell, cigarette vending machines? Cigarettes on airplanes? What were these people thinking! I think that 20, 30 years from now people will be looking back and going, What do you mean they let kids sit on TikTok for six hours a day? That’s stupid! Cell phones in schools? What?”
The warning label will go into effect next July 1st. And, yeah, I get that we all have pop-up fatigue, and some people will ignore the warning. Stephenson gets that, too – but he’s not discouraged.
“There’s still lots of people who, even as tobacco warning labels get more and more graphic and disturbing to look at, are still smoking cigarettes and ignoring them. And the same thing will be true with warning labels on social media,” Stephenson says. “But we know from the research on warning labels that some people will modify their behavior. In particular, I’m hopeful that parents of young children will delay giving their kid a cell phone for a year or two, or when their 10-year-old is like Hey, I want an Instagram account, they’ll say no. Even getting the 10-year-old to wait until they’re 13, or the 13-year-old to wait until they’re 15, and so on, would be a major win.”
Stephenson believes the negative effect of social media is “one of the most important issues that’s getting the least amount of attention in our time.” And ever since the news broke about the bill passing, parents and activists have been expressing their relief. One mom, in particular, really stuck out to me. Cheryl Brown, Founder of The McKenna Way said:
As a parent who lost my daughter McKenna to the dark side of the internet, I know firsthand the devastating cost of inaction. This warning label law is a life-saving step toward truth and accountability. It sends a clear message: Our kids’ mental health matters more than tech industry profits. Minnesota is leading with courage, and I hope the rest of the country follows.
Other states, like New York and Colorado, are taking action to protect kids from social media, too. I hope that, in time, every state — including Pennsylvania — joins the call to protect our kids from the danger lurking right in their pocket. We have to get back to what is most important, what really matters: having face-to-face conversations, personal relationships, and building an identity and sense of self and purpose in reality.
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