Earlier this month, the Texas state legislature passed the Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment Act, allowing parents to restrict and monitor their underage children’s social media behavior. Through Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Texas parents are now allowed to keep an eye on their children’s account activities, set time limits and even go so far as to remove their account entirely.
Responses to this legislation have varied, some think it’s too strong, others don’t think it’s strong enough.
The Texas law, also known as House Bill 18, was passed to include stipulations protecting minors from seeing content related to substance abuse or addiction, mentions of illegal drugs, alcohol, bullying and harassment, pornography, gambling and sexual exploitation in any way.
The push for this legislation was sparked by growing concerns amongst parents regarding the effects of social media exposure on young children and teens. Advocates for such legislation cite research from the National Library of Medicine, which outlines the potential negative mental consequences of increased screen time and social media consumption on impressionable children, particularly since the pandemic.
Responses to this legislation have varied, some think it’s too strong, others don’t think it’s strong enough. Some proponents of this law attempted to include even stricter provisions within the legislation — barring children under 18 from creating social media accounts, requiring parental consent to create an account and blocking certain types of content entirely from the algorithms of users under 18 among them — but ultimately these more severe restrictions were blocked.
Personally, I think legislation regarding restricting social media use, especially as it relates to young children, is all coming from a reasonable place. I strongly believe that there is a lot floating around the internet that children should not see. I do, however, also think that this kind of legislation does not guarantee that children won’t see it. Limiting what young children are exposed to on social media should be done by having conversations with them about how to be safe on the internet and what they should and should not be seeing, as well as having those difficult conversations with them if they do see that type of content.
I think legislation that allows parents to play a more active role in what their children are doing on social media is definitely a step in the right direction, but we should also be emphasizing to children how to advocate for themselves and practice safe internet habits.
mkane10@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of Tracey LeBlanc, Pexels
