Is State Regulation of Social Media for Mental Health Necessary?

Prisha Dev

Most people are aware of the negative effects social media has on mental as well as physical health including but not limited to anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and memory and sleep issues. The constant stream of cyberbullying, misinformation, and hateful content on social media does nothing to alleviate these problems.

Teenagers and young adults are most impacted by the negative effects of social media. As a result, parents, educators, and healthcare professionals have been taking steps to protect children from the harms and misuse of social media, such as lobbying for social media legislation. Those efforts have proven to be successful.

On October 15, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law legislation that requires social media platforms to have “health warning labels”. What would this look like? An initial 10-second warning each day when someone under the age of 18 logs onto a platform and a 30-second unskippable warning after 3 hours and each additional hour on the platform. 

This comes a few months after Governor Walz of Minnesota signed a similar policy into law.  Both of these governors’ actions are a result of the former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s call for warning labels on social media platforms in 2024, citing safety and mental health risks. Minnesota and California are the only states where this policy has become law, but other states, including New York and Texas have introduced similar legislation. Social media companies have not yet responded to these laws as they will go into effect in 2026, but the fact that more than 42 state attorney generals back this policy suggests that support transcends party lines. 

But would this actually be useful? Should Georgia follow California, Minnesota, and many other states’ example by adopting this policy? 

The nature of these health warning labels are essentially screen time restrictions supplemented with the declaration that social media pose significant harm to the mental health and well being of children and adolescents. However, most children and adolescents are aware of this–in fact, in a study that surveyed US teens, nearly half said they believed social media to have a “mostly negative effect” on their peers, and while there are not specific numbers in regards to this, the efficacy of health warning labels can be directly tied to the graphic nature and physical effects described. This makes them effective when attached to products like cigarettes and alcohol, but not so much for something like social media–where the side effects are less tangible and more well-known.

The implementation of this policy will likely not see any long-lasting changes in social media use among teenagers and young adults, as they aren’t really targeting what’s at stake. Instead there should be more of a push focusing on guiding kids and teens to use social media responsibly and to learn how to recognize different content styles and misinformation.

Copy Editor: Ashaar Bakshi

Photography Source: https://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/social-media-platforms-regulation/