Coloradans are all seeing a poor future for their kids and teenagers mental health because of social media use. Because people have been bringing so much attention to this issue, lawmakers want to do something about it. And the solution they want to pass is to put screen time on all teens’ social media. This would make it so people couldn’t just scroll through TikTok and Instagram.
But the screen time limit might not be a full-on stop for social media like everyone thought it was going to be. The bill requires a social media platform to display a pop-up warning to a user who is under the age of 18 and has spent one hour on social media platforms in 24 hours. and is on a social media platform between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The pop-up must show that spending more than 3 hours every day on social media doubles the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including anxiety and depression. The warning must include links to resources on the platform for setting screen time limits and links to the health-effect data.
But many students and teenagers have mixed feelings about the new bill. As one student from East High School in Denver says, “It’s supposed to be body positivity, but it ends up being really harmful. There’s an underlying negative tone around it.” Many teens are seeing all this negativity and know that it is harming them, but they are still scrolling through social media. So maybe this new bill will help bring attention to mental health and get teens help. Do you think that the new bill will be effective in helping teens mental health, or do you think that it will make it worse by cutting off their connection to their friends on social media?
