Rob Sand, the Democrat running for governor, says it’s time to ban social media accounts for children under the age of 16 and to require parental consent before 16- and 17-year-olds may have their own social media account.
Sand said “study after study” has linked social media use among children to higher rates of anxiety, depression, sleep loss and other mental health challenges. “These social media companies know that they are damaging our kids’ mental health and they don’t care,” Sand said Monday.
Sand is proposing legislation that would prohibit companies from selling the data about a minor’s online activity, data that’s often used to target minors with online advertising. He’s also calling for social media apps to have the option of turning off “infinite scroll.” That’s a common web design that keeps adding content as a user scrolls down the page.
“I’m not going to sit here and do nothing when we know they are happy to addict our kids to their product when they know it’s bad for their mental health,” Sand said.
Sand uses a smart phone app that limits his own social media use to 10 minutes a day. Sand said his over-arching goal with this set of proposals is to get kids off-line and focused on just being kids and that includes his own nine- and 12-year-old sons.
“Our boys see phones as a distraction from most of the adults that they love and who love them and I think that’s true for a lot of families,” Sand said. “And they’re pretty well convinced they don’t want phones until they’re 18.”
Sand admits some kids may find ways to work around these obstancles he suggests, but during a campaign stop in Boone, Sand told reporters that’s not an excuse to do nothing.
France has just moved to ban tech companies from letting French children under the age of 15 have access to social media apps.
