Earlier this month, Judge Robert Shelby of the U.S. District Court of Utah declared unconstitutional the Utah Minor Protection in Social Media Act, which the state legislature passed this spring. We believe this is an act of judicial activism that is based on flawed reasoning, legally and practically.
You don’t need social scientists to tell you something is wrong. Parents can look around and see for themselves: Kids aren’t talking to each other or the adults in their lives. Instead they are staring down at screens, lost in their own virtual world. This behavior is not accidental; nor are the deleterious effects that social scientists such as Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, and Jean Twenge have documented. Social media have conducted a radical experiment on our kids. Algorithms and addictive design features determine what our kids see and learn, with no parental involvement or oversight. The result has been major spikes in the rates of teen anxiety, depression, suicide, and self-harm.
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