DeSantis helps save Florida’s children

The world of social media developed so quickly that we had no idea how detrimental it would be to young minds. Well, reality cannot be denied forever. Twenty years after Facebook debuted, lawmakers are finally implementing regulations to protect children from it and other platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and more.

Recently in The New York Times, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy proposed a warning label for social media, noting that platforms come with significant mental health risks for children.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking it even further, signing a bill in March barring children under age 14 from possessing social media accounts. Those under 16 will need parental consent, and services must terminate any accounts of users known to be under the approved age.

This past-due law is the strictest nationwide, and other states should follow suit. The research is in (and has been for some time): Social media is fundamentally altering a generation, and not in a good way.

Name the problem for teens today and you can probably trace it back to smartphones and social media, whether it’s depression, anxiety, suicide, loneliness, failing academics, emotional maturity, or lack of independence. All of it is worse than ever before. Could constant access to amplified comparisons, bullying, and global issues via a pocket device contribute to the problem?

The pandemic didn’t help, but things went awry long before then. Fewer friends and romantic relationships, less sleep, stunted independence, and plummeting test scores—these trends, along with devastating mental health statistics, began to appear around 2010—not long after the birth of the iPhone.

Watching too much TV used to be a child’s worst vice. I was barred from watching shows like The Simpsons and Roseanne as a kid. Today, such concerns are tame compared to a world where online predators circle kids every time they open a social media app. And it’s a triple whammy: Sexually deviant opportunists, online scammers, and your child’s classmates and peers can harm them via social platforms.

When it comes to sexual predators, Roo Powell said her organization, Safe from Online Sexual Abuse (SOSA), encounters up to 300 “adult contacting minors” (ACMs) per week. SOSA workers pretend to be minors online, creating elaborate personas and social media accounts to fool adult men seeking children to abuse.

“Unfortunately, we never have to reach out to ACMs, because a minor online attracts them like flies to honey,” wrote Powell.

But the issue is more than just sexual predators—it’s what constant dings and notifications do to draw children out of the real world and into a subliminal one. It’s a digital “second life” where other people’s opinions, “likes” and comments, shape one’s understanding of self and the world. Social media erodes genuine human connections, reducing perspectives to pixels on a tiny screen.

Some estimates say 95 percent of teens have access to a smartphone, and Gallup found that they spend nearly five hours per day on social media alone, not including schoolwork or other online activities.

In The Social Dilemma, the acclaimed documentary about social media addiction, former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris said social media has conditioned a generation to avoid discomfort or loneliness with a “digital pacifier” that is “atrophying” their ability to function in the world.

The real-world results we see prove how true this is. It starts in preschool when parents plop preprogrammed iPads in front of toddlers as they cook dinner or finish work. This creates a system of dependency, where online interactions begin to creep up in the form of video games and eventually kids begging for social media to keep up with friends.

It also explains why teens drive and date less and more than half of young adults are still financially dependent on their parents. It’s easier to sink into a TikTok binge than learn how to turn right on red, take orders at McDonald’s, or struggle through the awkwardness of a first-date conversation.

Social media rewires the brain toward sensitivity, comfort, and superficial social rewards, according to a 2023 JAMA study. And though most schools say phones aren’t allowed in the classroom, the rule is useless unless they’re collecting them in the office.

The Florida law may be more effective because it is on the social media companies to enforce the rules or face fines of up to $50,000 per violation. Parents should ultimately be responsible for monitoring their children’s online behavior, but holding companies accountable is an important part of this.

We don’t need more studies to prove that social media hurts our kids. And we don’t need to live in Florida to protect them from it. Christian parents can take charge right now: Delete your kids’ social media accounts, swap out their smartphones for flip phones, and let them be kids for as long as they can. Gov. DeSantis is forging the way out of this disastrous digital experiment. I hope the rest of our nation’s leaders will follow quickly.