Colorado lawmakers take aim at social media apps, hoping to curb teens’ late-night habits

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Two bills at the Colorado Capitol would regulate tech giants by requiring more attention on young people’s use of social media. One would require app makers to deliver pop-up warnings late at…

In this photo illustration, a teenager uses her mobile phone to access social media on Jan. 31, 2024 in New York City. Annie Valentina Castanon knows the endless scroll of social media well — one short video on an app like Instagram or TikTok turns into another, she said, and soon a minute turns into hours.

Valentina Castanon, 17, helped spur a bipartisan bill, titled “Healthier Social Media Use by Youth,” through her work withwould require the Colorado Department of Education to create a resource bank for educators and parents about social media’s effects on youth mental health. The other bill, introduced last week, is an accountability measure that also aims to reduce the apps’ negative impacts on young users.would establish age-verification requirements for social media companies. It also would require them to ban users who promote or sell illicit substances or firearms in violation of state and federal laws, or who engage in sex trafficking of juveniles or possession or distribution of sexually explicit material.

“We clearly have an escalating problem with kids and their mental health,” Amabile said. “Social media is a part of that. It’s not the whole story, but it is a part of it.”by the U.S. surgeon general found children who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety. The average teenager spends 3.5 hours a day on social media, it says.

She said there are ongoing conversations about the pop-up provision, in particular, to determine if it’s appropriate for state regulations and if the legislation uses specific-enough definitions. She also noted that the industry has“Giving parents more of an education and the resources to make sure we are engaged in protecting our kids — for me, that’s what this bill is really about,” Pugliese said.

“Social media is not going away,” Williams said. “It is going to be with us for a very long time. So we’re asking: What’s the common-sense way to mitigate the harms that we know are posed to youth when they use these platforms?” The legislative efforts would mandate use of such guardrails. Williams, of Healthier Colorado, was skeptical many people use the voluntary protections offered by the platforms.

Barko also cautioned against rules that cast too wide of a net and stray from the specific harms policymakers are trying to address, especially given how fast the technology is changing.This time at All-Star weekend, Nikola Jokic is an NBA champion. That doesn’t mean anyone thinks he’s the face of leagueNBA trade deadline winners, losers: Did rest of league catch up with Denver Nuggets?

 

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