We Must Protect Our Children from Social Media Addiction

Imagine a company whose staff record children at the local playground, including the children’s conversations, interactions, and responses. The company uses that information to tailor products and advertising to each child. And the more they record the children, the better they become at targeting them and addicting them to the company’s products.

Moreover, they do all of this without the parents’ knowledge or 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 kids whose brains are still developing.

This is why the states of Idaho, Minnesota, and South Carolina recently passed the Stop Harms from Addictive Social Media Act (SHASM).

Based on a model bill developed by Alliance Defending Freedom, SHASM 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 features and targeted advertising from children’s accounts.

The result is a common-sense, constitutionally sound solution that puts children’s mental health and family control ahead of corporate incentives.

Why social media addiction is a growing threat

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.

One study showed that sixth graders picked up their phones an average of more than 100 times per day, most often to check social media apps. In another study, 35% of teens reported that they were on social media “almost constantly.”

But no amount of social media usage has proven safe for children, says Chelsey Youman, senior counsel for ADF’s Center for Public Policy.

“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,” she says.

Addictive social media features contribute to rising rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and social isolation among children and adolescents, she says. These harms are not accidental — rather, they are the byproduct of business models that profit from attention, personal data, and prolonged screen time.

“For social media platforms, an addicted user is a profitable one,” Youman says. The longer a child stays plugged in, the more data is collected and the more valuable that child becomes to advertisers. As a result, addictive social media features such as infinite scrolling, auto-play videos, and constant notifications keep kids hooked.

“Children are not experiments,” she says. “And their private information is not a commodity.”

How SHASM protects kids from online addiction

SHASM addresses the harms of addictive design and profit incentives while respecting free speech, privacy, and parental choice.

It keeps young children off social media by default. Social media platforms must use age-estimation technology to identify any user who is 15 or younger and must remove that user’s account unless a parent gives permission for the child to have it.

It puts parents back in control. Parents can choose to allow their child to use social media through verifiable parental consent. When a child’s account is approved, parents have the ability to set time limits and restrict access during certain hours. Privacy settings are installed by default.

It removes addictive design features. When parents allow their child to have a social media account, platforms must protect the child from features known to drive addiction. Children can access information, create content, and follow accounts they choose. SHASM simply blocks the engineered features designed to keep children hooked.

It stops targeted advertising using children’s data. A child’s online behavior cannot be exploited for profit. Platforms may not use data such as activity history, communication with friends, photos, and behavioral patterns for targeted advertising.

It gives families legal remedies to protect their kids. Parents can bring civil actions and other relief against platforms that break the law. And state attorneys general are also empowered to enforce the law.

How ADF became involved

Before SHASM, several states had already tried to legislate against social media addiction. ADF’s policy team studied those earlier efforts and developed SHASM specifically to protect minors through measures designed to survive constitutional scrutiny — relying on age estimation rather than digital IDs or other identity-verification systems that could later be used to track or silence people based on what they post online.

As ADF began working with individual states, the pushback was immediate.

“Many of the Big Tech companies came out very strongly against this bill,” says Youman, who helped lead the effort. This wasn’t surprising.

“These social media companies make a pretty large profit,” she says. “It’s a multibillion-dollar profit off children every single year. And this bill would impact that.”

Legislators, though, were supportive. “This was a rare instance where we saw a lot of unity across the aisle — lots of bipartisan effort.

“They really ended up resonating with the bill and the reasons why we needed it to be the way it is,” she says. “We would leave those committee hearings with unanimous committee votes, which they say does not happen often.”

Idaho enacted SHASM in April, becoming the first state to regulate social media use to protect minors. Minnesota and South Carolina followed in May.

“These bills are the first of their kind in the nation to push back against social media companies in a constitutional way,” Youman says. “These children deserve to be protected.”