Key Takeaways:
- Children should not be mined for their private information, and their developing brains need protection from mechanisms designed to addict them to social media.
- No amount of social media use has been proven safe for children. Studies consistently show that heavy social media usage is linked to increased risks of depression and anxiety.
- Social media platforms profit from addiction. The longer a child stays plugged in, the more data is collected and the more valuable that child becomes to advertisers.
- The “Stop Harms From Addictive Social Media” Act (SHASM) will help protect children while respecting free speech, privacy, and parental choice.
Imagine a company recording children at the local playground. It records their conversations, interactions, and responses. It uses that information to tailor products and advertising to each child. And the more it records the children, the better it becomes at targeting them and addicting them to the company’s products.
Moreover, it does all of this without their parents’ consent. Parents would rightfully be outraged and frightened.
Yet the degree of monitoring, recording, and exploitation by large social media platforms is far more intrusive and revealing than a playground video camera. And social media is dangerously addictive to vulnerable, developing minds of kids.
This is why the state of Idaho recently passed the Stop Harms from Addictive Social Media Act (SHASM).
SHASM directly confronts the root cause of harm to children online by stopping social media companies from addicting kids for profit. It protects young users by keeping children off social media by default, restoring parents’ authority when access is allowed, and eliminating addictive design features and targeted advertising from children’s accounts. The result is a commonsense, constitutionally-sound solution that puts children’s mental health and family control ahead of corporate incentives.
Why we must address social media addiction
Social media has become deeply embedded in everyday life, especially for children and adolescents. And platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are intentionally designed to maximize attention and engagement—and ultimately hook users.
For young users, this addictive design creates serious and well‑documented risks. Research, parental experience, and testimony from the tech companies themselves increasingly show that social media is addictive and harmful to children’s mental, emotional, and social development. Addictive social media features contribute to rising rates of anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, self-harm, and social isolation among children and adolescents.
These harms are not accidental. They are the byproduct of business models that profit from attention, personal data, and prolonged screen time.
Children are not experiments. And their private information is not a commodity. Their developing brains need protection.
The science of social media addiction
No amount of social media use has been proven safe for children. Even when parents impose time limits or content controls, social media displaces activities essential to healthy development, including sleep, physical activity, face‑to‑face interaction, and sustained attention.
Studies show:
- One-third of teens report being on social media “almost constantly.”
- Adolescents spending more than two hours per day on social media have significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression.
- Youth with heavy social media use are significantly more likely to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.
- Researchers estimate that advertising revenue from users ages 0–17 generated nearly $11 billion for major social media platforms in a single year, highlighting the strong financial incentives to maximize youth engagement.
Thus, studies show that adolescents are spending unprecedented amounts of time on social media. And heavy use of social media is consistently linked to increased risks of depression, anxiety, and persistent sadness, all while platforms generate billions in revenue by maximizing youth engagement.
How platforms get kids hooked
Social media platforms profit from addiction. The longer a child stays plugged in, the more data is collected and the more valuable that child becomes to advertisers. As a result, platforms use addictive design features such as infinite scrolling, auto‑play videos, constant notifications, and algorithmic targeting to keep kids hooked.
Children’s brains are particularly vulnerable to these designs. Neurological research shows that frequent exposure to social media triggers dopamine responses similar to those seen with addictive substances, weakening impulse control and emotional regulation over time.
No matter the content they consume, the social media experience itself is harmful because it is delivered through systems engineered to addict them.
Why parents cannot solve this alone
Parents have a fundamental right to raise and protect their children. But no parent can realistically counter billion‑dollar algorithms optimized in real time to capture attention and manipulate behavior.
Once a platform collects a child’s personal data—searches, every word they send or receive with friends, images, location, behavioral patterns—parents lose control over how that information is used.
How SHASM protects kids from online addiction
SHASM is a constitutionally-sound solution focused on addressing the harms of addictive design and profit-driven incentives to hook kids. It protects children while respecting free speech, privacy, and parental choice.
1. It keeps young children off social media by default
Social media platforms must use age estimation technology (which they already admit to using) to identify users who are 15 or younger and remove their accounts unless a parent gives permission. This means that:
- No ID uploads or face scans are required, protecting privacy for all users.
- Age estimation is ongoing and behavior-based.
- Platforms must periodically update their estimates, preventing minors from slipping through the cracks.
2. It puts parents back in control
SHASM empowers parents as they decide how best to guide their child’s online experience. Parents can choose to allow their child to use social media through verifiable parental consent, a standard already defined in federal law. And when a child’s account is approved, parents gain meaningful control, including the ability to set time limits, restrict access during certain hours, and set the strongest privacy settings by default.
3. It removes addictive design features for children
When parents do allow their child to have a social media account, social media platforms must protect child users from features known to drive addiction. These include:
- Infinite scrolling,
- Auto-play videos,
- Public “like” counts and engagement metrics,
- Push notifications, and
- Algorithmic targeting based on a child’s personal data.
When parents authorize accounts, children can choose what accounts they follow or what information they search for—under the strongest privacy protections and subject to laws that prohibit peddling obscenity to minors. SHASM simply blocks the engineered manipulation designed to keep children hooked.
4. It stops targeted advertising using children’s data
SHASM not only makes social media safer for children, but it also makes exploiting children less appealing to the social media giants.
SHASM treats a child’s online behavior as personal information, which cannot be exploited for profit. This includes activity history, communications with friends, photos, biometric data, location data, and behavioral patterns.
Platforms may not use this data to target ads to children based on their profiles. The intent is to break the financial incentive to addict and profit from children.
5. It gives families legal remedies to protect their kids
SHASM gives families legal remedies for negligent or knowing violations. Parents can bring civil actions for injunctions and other relief against platforms that break the law. And state attorneys general are also empowered to enforce the law.
Platforms that make reasonable, good-faith efforts to comply are protected by a safe harbor.
SHASM delivers a focused, constitutional solution by keeping young children off social media by default, restoring parents’ control, and eliminating addictive design features and targeted advertising based on kids’ personal information.
Frequently Asked Questions
States have a strong interest in protecting children from harm, including the harm that flows from addictive social media.
Children are most vulnerable to social media harm during early adolescence. Research shows especially high sensitivity during ages 11–13 for girls and 14–15 for boys.
SHASM focuses on protecting the most vulnerable age groups—15 and under—from the harms of social media.
SHASM applies only to companies with more than $1 billion in annual advertising revenue because:
- They account for the vast majority of youth social media use.
- They have the data and resources to implement age estimation accurately.
- Smaller platforms and non-advertising tools are not driving addiction.
- Overbroad regulation would risk the law being struck down.
- The focus is on the real source of the harm.
Traditional age verification methods like ID uploads are invasive, easy to bypass, and legally vulnerable. In contrast, age estimation is:
- Behavior-based,
- Ongoing, requiring periodic re-estimation,
- Harder to evade,
- Already used by major platforms internally.
Using age estimation protects privacy while improving accuracy over time.
No. SHASM targets addictive design features, not speech or content. Children can still access information, create content, communicate with others, and follow accounts they choose. The law regulates how platforms are designed, not what ideas are allowed.
Parents cannot realistically counter billion-dollar algorithms optimized to exploit children’s psychology.
Social media companies profit from addiction and data collection. History shows they will not self-regulate against those incentives.
SHASM sets narrow guardrails to protect children while leaving innovation, communication, and parental choice intact.
Related Articles
