The Irreparable Harm of Social Media on American Children

Social media has become ubiquitous in modern society. Over two-thirds of American adults reported using Facebook; nearly fifty percent of Americans report using Instagram; eight-out-of-ten Americans have used YouTube; adoption of TikTok has grown from twenty-one percent to thirty-three percent since 2021.[1] Social media started in the early 2000s with platforms such as MySpace and LiveJournal, which allowed people to connect with friends and family to share information with each other.[2] Then, platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram were founded and quickly gained popularity.[3] Platforms began adding more features, such as “news feeds,” where users could link to external sites while sharing personal updates, along with the ability to like, comment, and share such posts.[4] Eventually, social media companies began to use curated algorithms to present information and posts that try to predict what a certain user will want to see, amplifying certain posts while suppressing others.[5] These algorithms have become incredibly harmful to youth, resulting in a growing mental health crisis.[6] State legislatures have attempted to craft legislation to alleviate the crisis, by requiring companies to design their apps in a certain way, or by requiring age-verification for minors.[7] However, these efforts have been largely unnoticed and ineffective; the Federal Government must now undertake efforts to protect the youth from these applications.

Social Media’s Toxicity to Youth Mental Health, Attention, and Behaviors

Social media companies have designed algorithms to curate feeds that amplify what a particular user would want to see. These companies do this to sustain engagement and to keep people coming back to their platforms, which, in turn, drives revenues and profits for these companies, since they can also curate endless advertisements to the particular user.[8] This is particularly harmful to youth, because they do not have a fully developed prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain which largely controls impulses and decision-making.[9] What is more troubling is the adoption rate and usage statistics of social media by youth. In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, thirty-five percent of teens in 2022 reported using either YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, or Facebook “almost constantly.”[10] The combination of social media’s availability, harmful algorithms to ensure sustained engagement, and the lack of a fully-developed prefrontal cortex, creates an environment of perpetual social, emotional, and mental harm to youth.

An advisory report by the United States Surgeon General’s office reported that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media were at a much greater risk of poor mental health, including depression and anxiety.[11] The report noted that teens spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media, which has an adverse effect on the mental health of youth.[12] The report also noted that teens may be exposed to extreme, inappropriate, or harmful content, which has been linked to self-harm, suicide, and greater risk-taking.[13] Due to companies’ desire to serve constant and infinite content, exposure to social media can have effects similar to substance abuse or gambling, which becomes habit-forming and overstimulates the brain’s dopamine system.[14] Such use has been linked to sleep problems, self-reported and/or diagnosed attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and feelings of isolation, which, in turn, results in altered brain development, depression, and possible suicidal thoughts and behaviors.[15]

There are studies which have suggested that social media also benefits youth – crediting social media as a tool for forming more connections and expressing creativity. However, an increasing number of teens no longer view social media as a support system or as an outlet to showcase their creativity.[16] As companies fine-tune their algorithms to feed better-curated information and posts, they ignore the widespread, negative effects that these algorithms have on youth.

State Legislatures’ Ineffectiveness on Fighting Social Media

Various state legislatures have been enacting laws to combat social media’s detrimental effects on youth. However, these pieces of legislation have been largely ineffective, given that only twelve states have enacted such laws.[17] Additionally, each state has different requirements and procedures for these companies to follow, creating a patchwork of legislation that is not uniform across the nation.[18] Thus, children in some states may fare better than others. Furthermore, there are limits on what state laws can do without violating the “dormant Commerce Clause,” which is a doctrine that prevents states from enacting laws that discriminate against, or unduly burden interstate commerce.[19] These social media companies are multinational corporations, doing business not just in the United States, but abroad, meaning that states cannot effectively fight against these companies to protect youth, because if their laws violate the dormant Commerce Clause, such legislation may be struck down completely.

For example, in 2022, California enacted the “California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act,” which took effect in July 2024.[20] The Act provides, in pertinent part, that companies offering an online service, product, or feature that is likely to be accessed by children must (1) complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment, (2) document risks from their data management practices, (3) configure privacy settings that offer a high level of privacy, and (4) provide legal information using clear language suitable to children; the act also offers penalties for companies that violate the law.[21] While originally billed as a means to create a safer online space for children, the Act only materially addresses businesses that trade in consumers’ personal information, requiring that they protect information that children provide.[22] It is not fundamentally meant to change the way social media platforms actually present information to children, or to restrict the way children access such platforms.

Another example exists in Utah, with the “Utah Minor Protection in Social Media Act.”[23] The Act requires that social media companies “implement an age assurance system to determine whether a current or prospective Utah account holder… is a minor.”[24] Additionally, the Act requires companies to provide maximum privacy settings for minors, implement data encryption, and to disable autoplay functions and infinite scrolling.[25] While these protections go further than what California implemented with their Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, these protections fall short in one key area: Providing parents with the tools to regulate the content their children see. The Utah Act allows “supervisory tools” for a minor’s account that the “minor account holder may decide to activate.”[26] These tools are not under the parent’s control: They may only be activated at the election of the minor. These tools should already be given to the parent, to ensure that their child is not perusing through harmful content or staying on social media for a long period. However, Utah’s legislation provides a useful framework for the Federal Government to adopt when crafting legislation to combat the detrimental effects of social media on youth.

Only the Federal Government Can Effectively Combat This Epidemic

The Federal Government may use its powers under the Commerce Clause to enforce regulations on social media companies. While the First Amendment protects the freedoms of expression and speech, such freedoms are not absolute.[27] Congress has already prohibited the knowing distribution of certain sexually explicit material over the internet.[28] Congress has also repeatedly discussed policy around how to regulate social media platforms, with some bills imposing a “duty of care” and other regulations on such companies.[29]

For example, Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii introduced the “Protecting Kids on Social Media Act” in 2023.[30] The bill, which was not passed, provided that social media companies would (1) need to take reasonable steps to verify a user’s age, (2) bar any child under the age of thirteen from creating an account, (3) require parental consent when a child creates an account, and (4) prohibit the use of recommendation algorithms on teens under eighteen.[31] This legislation would be a giant step in the right direction. Another, similar bill that was introduced in the House of Representatives would further this endeavor, by requiring social media companies to use geofencing to block access to their platforms on a K-12 campus during a regular school day.[32] Social media does not belong in the classroom, and this bill would ensure that children do not have easy access to it during the school day.[33] These are bills that only the Federal Government has the power to enact, given that states do not have the power to enact legislation affecting commerce beyond their borders. If passed, power would be given back to the parents in deciding what to show their children and how to process information, hopefully undoing what is a perpetual cycle of harm to children.

Moving Forward

Social media companies have been afforded too much leniency and power for far too long. They have weaponized their algorithms to harm the most vulnerable of our population: Our children. Legislators have waited far too long to enact policies to protect our children from the infinite harm of the internet and of social media, but it is not too late to protect the future from these harms. State legislators have already started to move toward enacting their own solutions, but they can only do so much. The Federal Government is the only body that has the power and means to enact legislation, to enforce age limits, and to restrict what children should be able to see on social media. It is past time that the Federal Government enact sweeping legislation to protect children from harmful social media content.

[1] Jeffrey Gottfried, Americans’ Social Media Use, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Jan. 31, 2024), https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/.

[2] Katharine Paljug, Social Media: Definition, Importance, Top Websites, and Apps, Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media.asp (last updated Feb. 19, 2025).

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Nicholas Barrett, How have social media algorithms changed the ways we interact?, BBC (Oct. 12, 2024), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8e4p4z97eo.

[6] Social Media and Mental Health in Children and Teens, John Hopkins Med., https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/social-media-and-mental-health-in-children-and-teens (last visited Sep. 26, 2025).

[7] The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1798.99.28-40 (2023).

[8] William Brady and The Conversation US, Social Media Algorithms Warp How People Learn from Each Other, Sci. Am. (Aug. 25, 2023), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/social-media-algorithms-warp-how-people-learn-from-each-other/.

[9] Health and Hum. Serv., Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory 5 (2023), https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf.

[10] Emily A. Vogels, Risa Gelles-Watnick, and Navid Massarat, Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Aug. 10, 2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/.

[11] Health and Hum. Serv., supra note 9, at 6.

[12] Id. at 7.

[13] Id. at 8.

[14] Id. at 9.

[15] Id. at 10.

[16] Michelle Faverio, Monica Anderson, and Eugenie Park, Teens, Social Media and Mental Health, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Apr. 22, 2025), https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/22/teens-social-media-and-mental-health/#social-media-connections-creativity-and-drama.

[17] Peter Gratton, 12 States With Teens’ Social Media Regulation – Is Yours One of Them?, Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/states-with-social-media-regulation-for-teens-8757983 (last updated Apr. 25, 2025).

[18] Id.

[19] Legal Information Institute, Dormant Commerce Clause, Cornell L. Sch., https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/dormant_commerce_clause (last updated Aug. 2024).  

[20] The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1798.99.28-40 (2023).

[21] Complete Stat. Code Civ. §1798.99.31.

[22] Office of the Attorney General of California, Attorney General Bonta Appeals Age-Appropriate Design Code Act Decision (Apr. 11, 2025), https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-appeals-age-appropriate-design-code-act-decision.

[23] Utah Code §§ 13-71-101-401 (2024), https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title13/Chapter71/13-71.html?v=C13-71_2024100120240501.

[24] § 13-71-201.

[25] § 13-71-202.

[26] § 13-71-203.

[27] U.S. Courts, What Does Free Speech Mean?, https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/what-does-free-speech-mean (last visited Sep. 26, 2025).

[28] Peter Benson, Valerie Brannon, Victoria Killion, and Ling Zhu, Cong. Resch. Serv., IF12904, Social Media: Regulatory, Legal, and Policy Considerations for the 119th Congress (2025).  

[29] Id.

[30] Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, S. 1291, 118th Cong. § 1 (2023).

[31] Id. at §§ 3-6.

[32] No Social Media at School Act, H.R. 5173, 119th Cong. § 2 (2025).

[33] Id.