Over the past decade, social media has become engrained in our everyday lives, allowing us to be more connected with others than ever before. However, these social media platforms were never created with the standards necessary to protect young users. Instead, large corporations have designed social media platforms using targeted algorithms to form addictive usage patterns and have continuously failed to prevent children from being prescribed harmful content. As a result, we are now seeing drastic increases in rates of depression, anxiety, body image issues and cyberbullying amongst children and teens using these platforms.  
 
Last year, I had the privilege of meeting three 9th grade students of Tamanend Middle School, Max Jin, Luka Jonjic, and Dylan Schwartz, who were honored with an award from C-SPAN. These students put forward in their award-winning documentary, “America’s Silent Struggle: Social Media’s Impact on Teens’ Mental Health,” a fictional example of a newly elected congressman working to pass legislation on social media and its impact on the mental health of children. During this event, I suggested that we turn fiction into a reality and begin working with the students and their parents to craft a piece of legislation that would help tackle this important issue. Last session, I introduced House Bill 2017, which was a direct result of thorough conversations with these dedicated students.

As such, I will be reintroducing this legislation to enhance protections for young Pennsylvanians when using social media. Specifically, this bill would prevent individuals under the age of 16 from becoming an account holder on a social media platform, unless the minor has the express consent of their parent or legal guardian. Additionally, a parent or legal guardian would be given the ability to supervise the minor’s account, including viewing privacy settings and giving the minor the option of providing notifications to the parent or legal guardian if the minor reports a person or an issue to the social media platform. Lastly, this bill protects individuals under the age of 18 from data mining and targeted advertisements based on the minor’s age, gender, or interests.

Young people deserve greater protections against the harmful tactics used by social media platforms during this highly sensitive period of development. I ask that you please join me in supporting this legislation to improve social media protections and encourage positive mental health for young users of these platforms.