When the COVID-19 pandemic hit during her freshman year of high school, Kaitlyn Tollefson turned to social media to occupy her time and connect with friends during the lockdown.

It quickly evolved from a way to keep in touch with her peers to a full-blown addiction, with Tollefson spending about 12 hours each day scrolling through TikTok. 

“I would scroll on social media, losing hours of sleep, skipping meals, or using it as an unhealthy coping mechanism, never feeling any better for being on it for half of my day,” said Tollefson, now 19.

Tollefson is among several people who testified in support of a proposal that sponsors said would help protect children’s mental health amid the pervasive use of social media among minors. The Senate Committee on Education advanced the measure on Monday.

For Tollefson and the bill’s sponsors, its provisions are a necessary response to what they described is a platform that’s fueling an addiction that, in turn, is yielding unhealthy behavior among America’s youngsters.    

To critics, however, the proposal effectively serves as a substitute for parental decision-making, with government interjecting itself into conversations best left to parents and their children to navigate.   

Fight addiction with pop-ups

The proposal adopts a two-pronged approach. First, the measure requires Colorado’s education agency to expand wellness programs by adding initiatives that address the effects of technology on young people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

More notably, House Bill 1136 mandates social media platforms to display pop-up notifications to users under the age of 18 when minors have spent an hour on social media per day or are using the platform between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

In particular, the notifications must include educational data and scholarly articles about the negative health effects of excessive social media use.

That data would be sourced from a “resource bank” to be established by the Colorado Department of Education and which would be accessible to parents, teachers and students.

The bill, which has already passed through the House, is sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, and Jim Smallwood, R-Sedalia.   

While critics may argue that monitoring children’s social media activity is solely the responsibility of parents, Smallwood said many parents, including himself, are navigating an unfamiliar territory and are looking for guidance from their government.

“I really feel that my constituents are demanding help in this area,” he said.

Cutter said research has shown youth social media use is reaching “problematic” levels, and that studies have found direct correlations between excessive social media use and poor mental health, including an increased risk of anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

She also highlighted statistics saying a quarter of teens report spending more than four hours a day on social media, with one in six admitting they use apps, such as YouTube and TikTok, “almost constantly”.

Cutter pointed to research indicating that incorporating “friction” elements — such as pop-up notifications that disrupt a user’s scrolling — prompts individuals to stop and evaluate their social media usage.

She also expressed a preference for stronger federal regulation of social media platforms but argued for the importance of state-level regulation in the meantime.

“We cannot simply regulate our way out of this issue without first building the foundation needed to help teens and parents make better decisions,” she said, adding that the resource bank does not mandate anything for teachers and educational professionals — it simply acts as a tool to help them better understand the effects social media can have on students.

Colorado’s lawmakers aren’t the only policymakers exploring how to limit what they described as pernicious effects of social media on children’s mental health.

This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed one of the country’s most restrictive social media bans for minors — assuming it withstands expected legal challenges.

The bill bans social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds. It was slightly watered down from a proposal DeSantis vetoed earlier this month.

The new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, was Republican Speaker Paul Renner’s top legislative priority. 

“A child in their brain development doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked into these addictive technologies and to see the harm and step away from it, and because of that we have to step in for them,” Renner said at the bill-signing ceremony held at a Jacksonville school.

The bill DeSantis vetoed would have banned minors under 16 from popular social media platforms regardless of parental consent. But before the veto, he worked out compromise language with Renner to alleviate the governor’s concerns and the Legislature sent DeSantis a second bill.

Several states have considered similar legislation. In Arkansas, a federal judge in August blocked enforcement of a law that required parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts.

Supporters: ‘Persuasive friction’ can disrupt scrolling 

Eighty-two percent of Coloradans said social media has a negative impact on mental health, according to a survey conducted by Healthier Colorado.

Of those surveyed, 86% said the state plays a crucial role in educating the public about the negative effects of social media   

Healthier Colorado’s Alexis Alltop highlighted the significance of the resource bank, citing evidence indicating that individuals are more likely to change their behavior when they have access to accurate, fact-based information.

“This bill takes a public health approach rooted in evidence-informed solutions, recognizing that education and agency are some of the most important bases for positive behavior change,” she said.

She said “persuasive friction,” such as pop-up notifications, “can help users slow down or moderate their scrolling, similar to how friction on the road slows down cars.” 

Sarah Younggren, a clinical social worker and school mental health consultant, said the essence of social media revolves around seeking validation and acceptance from peers — whether it be in the form of likes, retweets, comments, or direct messages.

“Online platforms create social pressure to be seen and noticed, and teens can become focused on keeping up with likes and scores,” she said.

Dealing with this much constant pressure would be debilitating for an adult. For an adolescent brain that is still developing, it can be harmful for their mental health.” 

Younggren spoke of a particular 13-year-old girl she worked with who was being cyberbullied by her male peers but didn’t speak up about it because she assumed it is a normal part of using social media. She asserted that tools from a potential resource bank would be extremely helpful to educate students about the dangers of social media and which behavior is and isn’t acceptable online. 

In her testimony to the education panel, Tollefson acknowledged the potential positive outcomes from social media, such as connecting with like-minded individuals from all over the world and being exposed to different cultures, lifestyles, and viewpoints.

But she also argued that social media platforms are specifically engineered to be addictive. 

As Marilyn Welsh, professor emeritus of psychology at University of Northern Colorado, explained it, scrolling through social media activates the reward centers in the brain, which is still in development during the teenage years.

This rapid development makes teens “particularly prone to self-consciousness and vulnerable to the negative comments of peers,” Welsh said. 

Pop-up notifications can give a much-needed break to the brain’s frontal lobe, which is responsible for executive functioning. 

“Providing youth with valid information about the consequences of heavy social media use will empower them to achieve self-regulation during this critical period of brain development,” she said.

Meanwhile, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann spoke of the unique pressures teens face today from social media, something she said neither she nor the committee members could truly understand.

Regardless, said McCann, “it is imperative that we adjust to today’s world and give parents and teens the information and resources they need to navigate social media.”

As district attorney, McCann said she has personally seen instances of teens engaging in criminal behavior encouraged by social media trends. 

“Social media normalizes trends and behavior for youth in this age group,” she said. “Some of it is harmless, but much of it is very damaging. They’re at an extremely impressionable stage of life and do not have the developmental capabilities to differentiate between what they see on social media and what is acceptable behavior in our communities.”

Critics: ‘Parents need to do the unpopular job’

While the witnesses acknowledged the good intentions behind the bill, some raised concerns about its effectiveness.

Ruthie Barko of TechNet, an organization that represents technology companies, suggested amending the bill to make it less prescriptive regarding the content and timing of pop-up notifications.

She also expressed concerns about the proposed mandates’ interoperability between states in the absence of a federal standard. 

“If each state legislates this issue and develops different mandated requirements, a conflicting matrix of notification requirements would emerge,” she said.  

Erin Meschke, a mother of four from Boulder, said something certainly needs to be done to solve this problem, but she predicted kids would find a workaround to avoid or disable the pop-up notifications. 

“I applaud and appreciate the effort, truly, but I couldn’t sign up in support because I don’t think the bill will accomplish what is intended,” she said. “This is an issue where parents need to do the unpopular job of putting down their foot about phone and computer usage for both content and time.”

Meschke added: “Legislative involvement is warranted in places where children need outside protection from something parents cannot control, but in a family issue like this, I am not convinced legislation is the answer.”

Rob Friedl, also a parent, agreed that the bill would relinquish parental responsibilities to the state. 

“This is an example of the government trying to pass into the lane of parental responsibility,” he said. “Parents need to raise their children, and the boundaries that are set in terms of internet usage need to be something that is left to the responsibility of the parent.” 

In her concluding remarks to the committee, Cutter spoke of other industries in which warnings and regulations have been mandated to protect children, such as car seats and cigarette packages. She said she is unaware of TechNet’s concerns with the bill but that she and her co-sponsor would be willing to discuss them.

All members of the committee voted in favor of the bill except for Sen. Mark Baisley, R- Sedalia, who expressed worries about a proposal rooted in good intentions and ending with questionable outcomes. 

“This is one of those really great ideas that the state should not be doing,” he said. “I can just about guarantee you that it will start out great and within a couple of years it will be commandeered by folks that will add to the acceptable list of documents a lot of ‘woke’, unhealthy, inappropriate content.”