Social media has become a huge part of many Americans’ lives. Every day, many teens and adolescents open their phones and log onto a social media app. Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, or X, social media has taken hold of the lives of many. According to the Pew Research Center, an organization that aims to help U.S. and international policymakers, civic leaders, educators, and the public at large understand some of the world’s most challenging problems, around 96% of teens report using the internet on a daily basis.
Because of the strong hold that social media has on the daily lives of adolescents, government leaders in New York and across the country have decided to take action.
In December of 2025, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill S4505 that would require social media platforms to post warnings on their platforms. This bill was introduced by Senator Andrew Gournardes. It was based on concerns made by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy about the mental health risks of social media, especially for teens. In his research, he found that heavy social media use is linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression in adolescents, specifically that the average teen uses social media for around “4.8 hours” per day, and teens using social media for over 3 hours a day have a “doubled risk of anxiety and depression”. Therefore, this bill would require a warning label on these platforms every time a user opens the app. For a social media platform to count as “addictive,” it would need to have features such as like counts, push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and algorithm-based feeds. In having these features, the social media platform would have to have a warning label that is clearly visible, follows wording set by state officials, and is not hidden or minimized.
These platforms are prohibited from designing apps to hide or weaken the warning and punishing users by raising prices or lowering quality for seeing warnings. Overall, New York officials will decide the warning label contents, update its contents based on new research, and control its placement and frequency. Also, the Attorney General will enforce this law, sue companies that violate it, and be able to fine up to $5,000 per violation. Ultimately, this act is planned to take effect 180 days after the New York attorney general finalizes rules on how companies should take action.
“I think the senate bill is irrelevant,” said Kate Charach (‘27), “It’s just a warning, but realistically no one is gonna read that warning [they’ll] just click past it, and it’s gonna get annoying over time if it pops up every time we open our social media.”
Similarly, the SAFE for Kids Act, introduced by Andrew Gounardes and other New York senators in October of 2023 and signed by Kathy Hochul in June of 2024, was created to protect minors from addictive social media algorithms and reduce risks like depression, anxiety, and self-harm linked to heavy social media use. This law would prohibit social media companies from providing “addictive feeds” to users under 18 unless they verify the user is not a minor, or they get parental consent. Similar to Senate Bill S4505, to be considered an “addictive feed”, there would need to be algorithm-driven content designed to keep users engaged based on factors such as likes, follows, watch time, user behavior, and data tracking. While this may seem daunting, this law will still allow for non-addictive feeds, such as chronological posts, and access to all content, just without addictive algorithms. Also, this act will only affect social media companies that have an addictive feed as a significant part of their platform, not platforms where users are on the feed for a small part of their time using the platform.
Additional restrictions include removing notifications to minors from 12 AM-6 AM without parental consent and using reasonable age-verification methods. It is also to be mandated that the data collected for age checks must be used only for that purpose and deleted afterwards.
To enforce this, the New York Attorney General can sue companies and issue fines up to $5,000 per violation, and the public can submit complaints. This law targets the algorithm itself, not just screen time. It aims to stop social media companies from intentionally keeping adolescents hooked.
“I’m all for the fact that government officials and companies are trying to counteract and fix all of these harmful effects of social media on kids,” said Ilana Zhitomirsky (‘27), “however they have to be really careful with how they do it because you don’t want to restrict their feed to the point where it’s limiting their freedom of expression.”
It’s important to note that while these bills have been signed by Governor Hochul, the attorney general has to finalize the rules and guidelines of the law, and then, following the finalization, the law officially takes effect 180 days later.
A more controversial piece of legislation regarding social media for teens in the United States is the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSA), passed in 2024. This act applies to platforms used by minors and covers social media, messaging apps, video games, and streaming services. The main goal of this act is to protect minors from online harms such as mental health issues, addiction-like behavior, bullying, harassment, sexual exploitation, and exposure to drugs, alcohol, and gambling content. Platforms must limit who can contact minors, protect personal data and privacy, reduce addictive features, allow chronological feeds, and restrict geolocation tracking. KOSA also urges for the use of parental controls that would give parents the option to view and change account settings, limit screen time, and more.
Furthermore, platforms must have an available reporting system that allows users, parents, and schools to report harm. This act is still being debated and discussed by the House and Senate due to their different ideas of the definition of harm, age knowledge standards, and reporting and research requirements. Moreover, some organizations do not support KOSA because they believe that it would infringe on the First Amendment by enforcing “invasive age checks”. Overall, this act aims to make online platforms safer by default for kids, with stronger protections, parental control, and limits on harmful or addictive features.
Ultimately, as these laws continue to develop, the effectiveness of these laws will depend on how they are enforced and followed by online platforms.
