If you’ve worried about your teen spending way too much time on social media, doomscrolling late at night or feeling pressure to keep a streak going on Snapchat, you’re far from alone. As parents, we know we have a huge responsibility to model healthier phone habits and set boundaries around social media use. This week, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill shifted some of that responsibility to the companies designing the social media apps our kids and teens use every day.
On August 11, Gov. Sherrill signed a package of three online-safety bills. The first, the New Jersey Kids Code Act, requires certain online services to design their products with the safety and well-being of kids and teens in mind.
“Among its protections, the law limits the data companies can collect and retain from children, establishes safeguards around interactions between minors and adult users, requires platforms to set their default privacy settings for children to the highest level of privacy, and restricts certain platform features designed to keep young users constantly engaged,” according to a statement from Gov. Sherrill’s office.
The other two laws establish a Social Media Research Center in New Jersey and direct it to study addictive social media behaviors and possible interventions like warning labels. Requirements in the New Jersey Kids Code take effect on the first day of the 13th month after the law’s enactment, which means Sept. 1, 2027.
What Could Change for Your Teen?
One of the changes the new law will address is privacy. Covered online services will have to give users they know are under 18 their highest level of privacy by default. The law also restricts adults from automatically seeing a minor’s account or posts, limits direct messaging between minors and adults unless the teen specifically allows it, keeps location sharing private by default and disables search-engine indexing of a minor’s account. Interaction counts such as comments, reactions and reshares must also be disabled by default, although users will have settings that allow them to turn those features on. Read the full Kids Code law here.
The law also limits how covered services can use a child’s or teen’s personal data to decide what content an algorithm recommends to them. Platforms that use algorithmic recommendations will also have to provide kids, teens and parents with an accessible way to say what kinds of media they want recommended or blocked and to review or change how personal data is being used for the algorithm.
The law also identifies design features like infinite scroll, autoplay, streaks and badges, notifications, virtual currencies, appearance-altering filters and disappearing content designed to create urgency. The law pushes companies to take steps to make sure their use of kids’ personal data and these design features do not cause compulsive use by a minor.
That focus makes sense to Jon-Patrick Allem, PhD, MA, associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society and Policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Allem is a social media researcher who studies how social media platforms, content and digital marketing influence health-related attitudes and behaviors, particularly among adolescents and young adults.
“I’m particularly concerned about features that are designed to keep young people engaged for as long as possible, rather than simply allowing them to communicate or access information,” Allem told New Jersey Family.
Infinite scroll, he says, removes a natural stopping point, making it harder for kids to recognize how long they’ve been online. Notifications can pull them back throughout the day, even when they should be sleeping, studying or spending time with people offline.
He’s also concerned about likes, follower counts, streaks and other features that can create a feeling that kids need to keep checking in. “Adolescence is a period when peer acceptance and social status are particularly salient, so these features can make social media feel less like an optional activity and more like something young people need to monitor continuously,” Allem says.
Notifications are also a focus of the new law. Covered services cannot send notifications to kids and teens by default. They also cannot send them between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., or between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays between Labor Day and Memorial Day when most kids are in school.
The law applies to certain online services doing business in New Jersey whose services are likely to be accessed by children or teens. It covers qualifying companies with more than $25 million in annual gross revenue or that annually process personal data from at least 25,000 consumers or households.
Can a Law Really Change How Teens Use Social Media?
Allem says changing platform design has the potential to make a meaningful difference, “particularly because we are asking children and adolescents to regulate their behavior in environments that are intentionally designed to capture and retain their attention.” But he added that “we should not put the entire burden on young people, or their parents, to resist features that are engineered to encourage continued engagement.”
Realistically, we can’t expect the new law to suddenly eliminate problematic social media use, Allem says. “Young people have already developed habits and social routines around these platforms, and social media is deeply embedded in adolescent life. The more realistic goal is to change the environment in which those habits occur.”
What Can Parents Do Now?
You don’t need to wait until the law goes into effect to address your teen’s social media use. Allem recommends setting boundaries around when and where kids use social media, such as keeping phones out of bedrooms overnight and making meals, homework and family activities screen-free when possible.
He also suggests talking to kids about why their favorite apps can be so hard to put down. “Rather than simply saying ‘you spend too much time on your phone,’ parents can help young people recognize why they receive certain notifications, why their feeds keep refreshing, and how likes, streaks and recommendations are intended to encourage continued engagement,” Allem says. “Developing that kind of media literacy can give adolescents more agency over their technology use.”
The goal, Allem says, “shouldn’t be to eliminate social media from young people’s lives, but to help them develop the skills and habits to use it in ways that support their sleep, relationships, mental health, and overall well-being.”
Later this year, New Jersey will launch a new Social Media Research Center, which will be housed at a four-year public college or university and will research social media use and its effects, especially as it relates to kids and teens.
Another law directs the center to research addictive social media behaviors, and recommend interventions that could help such as warning labels and disclaimers. Allem is encouraged by New Jersey’s approach and the fact that the law “recognizes that this is not simply a ‘kids need to use their phones less’ problem. It is also a product design and business model problem. The responsibility needs to be shared by young people, parents, schools, policymakers, and, importantly, the companies designing these platforms.”
He said independent research is needed to determine whether these changes actually alter kids’ and teens’ experiences and behaviors with social media over time. He added: “The state has an opportunity to treat this as a natural experiment and generate evidence that can inform policy well beyond New Jersey.”
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