海角大神

As a father of six children, Utah state Sen. Kirk Cullimore is no stranger to the joys and rigors of parenting. His youngest is 9 years old, and his oldest is 20, just entering early adulthood.聽

And yet, as the years go by, one parenting challenge has remained stubbornly constant for him and his wife, Heather: their kids鈥� ever-present phones.聽

When it comes to setting limits on his children鈥檚 screen time, Senator Cullimore says he has fallen short. The Republican lawmaker suspects he is not alone 鈥� and that鈥檚 just one reason he helped make Utah the first jurisdiction in North America last year to pass legislation attempting to limit kids鈥�, and especially students鈥�, access to social media.

鈥淪ome parents do think they鈥檙e doing a good job,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e doing a good job, kudos to you and great job. But the reality is that there are many of us who are trying, and it鈥檚 too big of a problem.鈥�

On a hot day in the suburban Salt Lake City district Senator Cullimore represents, five of his six children gather around a conference table in his law office to talk about their experiences. Their phones are nowhere in sight.

For the next hour they discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly of their social media habits. Ordinarily, they say, being without their screens would be an agonizing ordeal for them.聽

But the family has just returned from an Alaska cruise that had spotty internet connection. The involuntary hiatus from the digital worlds they inhabit so often wasn鈥檛 easy. But they appreciate how it made them prioritize hanging out with each other and their cousins.

After the cruise, when they could finally get service at the airport, the allure of logging on to Instagram didn鈥檛 feel so strong, says 16-year-old Kapri. 鈥淚 was like, 鈥楥ooool,鈥欌�� she says slowly, with a pantomime of surprise. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 that important.鈥�

Her father knows these reactions might not last very long. And the discussion is important. But it鈥檚 going to take a lot more to address the amount of time young people devote to social media. 鈥淲e need everybody,鈥� Senator Cullimore says.聽

New laws seek to minimize social media harm among young users

Indeed, more and more parents, educators, and lawmakers are starting to view the problem as an untamed beast. As a result, there has been a sea change in public sentiment across the United States and Canada, about kids and their smartphones. There鈥檚 been a growing sense that social media is changing, and in some ways robbing, children of their childhood.聽

Utah鈥檚 pioneering efforts last year helped open the floodgates to a wave of legal efforts to address the amount of time children and teens spend glued to their phones.

Experts say it has been a watershed moment, akin to major shifts around other health issues such as tobacco use. By the end of last year, at least a dozen U.S. states had approved laws or enacted resolutions seeking to minimize social media harm among their youngest users, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many other states are poised to pass even more this year.

鈥淟ike seat belt laws and tobacco regulations enacted years ago to protect our physical health, and especially our kids, today I鈥檓 calling on Utahans to join me in supporting commonsense solutions, working together to protect the mental health of our young people,鈥� Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said in a speech in 2022.聽

He signed the first restrictions into law in March 2023. They included banning kids under age 18 from using social media between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. and requiring age verification for all new accounts. (Tech companies immediately challenged these in court, and they have since been revised.)

What has unfolded throughout North America since then has been a three-pronged strategy: legislation and school policies that attempt to reduce the time children spend on their phones, lawsuits against social media companies, and broader awareness campaigns for parents and kids.

鈥淭here are different models of accomplishing change, and I think we鈥檙e going to need all of them here, legislative, public, school boards, litigation, everything that can be brought to bear on this to create the change that we need to see,鈥� says Duncan Embury, lawyer for a coalition of school boards in Ontario suing social media companies in a first-of-its-kind case in Canada.

Lawsuits place blame squarely on social media companies

Nancy Crawford is the chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and for the past 14 years she鈥檚 watched how students have been changing.

She says their attachment to tech is something that has worried her again and again. From her office in the building of the Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts, she describes observing high schoolers crouched over their phones outside at the end of a school day. Even in the warmth of late spring, she says, this takes priority over talking to their peers face-to-face.

She worries about the ever-present technology that surrounds her grandchildren as they grow up in this era.聽

鈥淲hat happened to books?鈥� she says. 鈥淲hat happened to them running around outside? It鈥檚 become increasingly obvious that something鈥檚 not good here.鈥�

So Ms. Crawford鈥檚 Catholic school district has become one of 12 public school boards and two private schools in Ontario that have joined Canada鈥檚 first school-driven lawsuit against social media companies.聽

The lawsuit, filed this spring, accuses three tech giants of knowingly creating addictive social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. These 14 Ontario schools and school boards allege these applications have compromised students鈥� ability to learn and are creating increasing mental health harms.

鈥淢ost court cases don鈥檛 affect this many people, this deeply,鈥� says Mr. Embury.

So far, Ontario has been the only Canadian province to take such action. But in the U.S., such litigation has exploded over the past year.

At least 44 U.S. states have filed lawsuits against social media companies. Separately, more than 200 American public school districts have also filed similar lawsuits.聽

The legal arguments are generally similar: They accuse the Big Tech companies of intentionally designing highly addictive products and then marketing them to children and teens, those most vulnerable to emotional manipulation.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a successful businessman, thinks the school board lawsuits are unnecessary and that schools should focus on education. 鈥淟et鈥檚 focus on math, reading and writing,鈥� he said in the spring when the Ontario case was filed.

At almost the same time, however, his administration embraced the legislative approach, passing province-wide rules that limit students鈥� use of their smartphones.聽

As of this September, these rules will require that all phones in Ontario schools be kept on silent and hidden from view, except between classes and during lunch. In elementary schools, phones must be silent and out of view the entire day.

Arming parents with digital literacy know-how

Paul Davis, a social media expert and activist in Ontario, has made a living talking about the dangers these applications pose to children. But he says lawsuits like those the Ontario school districts have filed are frivolous, and he鈥檚 been a critic of a lot of the legal efforts happening.聽

He worries that the province鈥檚 new smartphone ban is less restrictive than the rules some principals have already implemented 鈥� thus undermining local efforts already underway.聽

鈥淲e don鈥檛 need a lawsuit,鈥� says Mr. Davis, taking a pause at a coffee shop outside Toronto before heading into back-to-back presentations scheduled later in the day. 鈥淲e need no phones in elementary school, zero tolerance. And we need no kid on social media until 13.鈥�

He鈥檚 been sharing this message for the past 13 years, visiting schools and talking to kids and educators about the risks phones pose and what to do about it. And he鈥檚 clear on who must take control: parents.

鈥淲e are giving our children far too much at a young age,鈥� says Mr. Davis, who鈥檚 delivered a TED Talk on the topic. 鈥淧arents don鈥檛 quite understand how much power is in that device that鈥檚 in their child鈥檚 hands.鈥�

Matthew Johnson, director of education at MediaSmarts,聽a digital literacy organization in Ottawa, Ontario, also focuses on parents. He says they are in part to blame. Many don鈥檛 regulate their own social media habits, let alone their children鈥檚.聽

Two-thirds of young people report it was their parents who gave them their first phone, his organization鈥檚 latest annual survey found. The reason most give is so parents can contact them at any time.

But the concern for the safety and location of their children clashes with the unintended side effects these powerful communication devices create, he says. This includes the isolation of phone use in lieu of exploring physical spaces.

鈥淎t first parents were more often concerned about quite uncommon and extreme experiences like stranger contact and online predators,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd that changed over time to be focused on the more common but fairly significant things like cyberbullying and online disinformation and hate content.聽

鈥淎nd more recently, we鈥檙e seeing concerns just generally about simply the amount of time they鈥檙e spending on their phones,鈥� Mr. Johnson says.

Some see in the current reactions to social media the same kind of moral panics in both countries at the onset of television or, more recently, video games. And while parents are no longer going it alone to limit their children鈥檚 access to social media, some critics argue they should be: This is a matter for the home.

Experts like Mr. Johnson also worry about the focus on addiction, which he believes distracts people from the real issues.

鈥淯nfortunately, there is a tendency to default to the addiction framing,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd this is a really counterproductive framing, because what it really does is it absolves us of responsibility,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t says that the device or the app is the problem, not us. It says that we have no control.鈥�

Why one teen gave up her smartphone entirely

When Liddy Johnson was in seventh grade in South Weber, Utah, right at the top of her Christmas list was, no surprise, a smartphone. She was overjoyed when her parents obliged.

They restricted her from every social media app except Pinterest, however. Her parents felt the popular app had a good enough reputation as an 鈥渋nspiration board鈥� for cooking and crafts.

These stringent parental restrictions also included a digital curfew. But what began as occasional scrolls through Pinterest soon morphed into hours of surfing each day, says Liddy, now 16 years old. And it wasn鈥檛 long before she discovered how to post videos on the site.

鈥淎ll of a sudden, people were noticing me,鈥� she says. The 鈥渓ikes鈥� were emotionally intoxicating, fueling a need for what she describes as 鈥渇ake validation.鈥� She began to withdraw from family and friends. She watched her grades suffer. She started fighting more with her parents.聽

鈥淓veryone was just so angry at me for not wanting to do anything,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd I was angry at myself.鈥�

Then, in her first few months in high school, she reached a breaking point. After an argument with her mother one morning, she confessed to breaking her parents鈥� phone rules. She was constantly craving access to social media, she told her, all while feeling depressed to the point of thoughts of suicide.聽

Her mom took her for a drive. They ended up at a diner, where the high school first-year student sobbed over eggs. She handed her phone to her mother, and agreed to go to therapy.

This moment, after nearly two years of watching her daughter slip into isolation, provided some clarity. She had a serious social media addiction.聽

鈥淚t all clicked,鈥� says Corinne Johnson, Liddy鈥檚 mother. 鈥淥f course. This makes complete sense,鈥� she remembers thinking after her daughter鈥檚 confession at the diner.

The senior policy adviser for a Salt Lake County Council member, Ms. Johnson is also the president and co-founder of Utah Parents United, a conservative advocacy group for parental rights. She鈥檚 been working to support Utah鈥檚 legislative efforts to address what she鈥檚 experienced firsthand as a serious problem.

Normally, her nonprofit seeks to keep the government out of decisions that it believes should be reserved for parents alone. But now it鈥檚 become a mantra for Ms. Johnson, the governor, and other lawmakers: This problem is too big for parents alone.

鈥淲e did, as an organization, realize there are times and places where we need the support of our government to hold Big Tech and billion-dollar companies, who view our children as products, accountable,鈥� Ms. Johnson says.

Surgeon General warns parents about teen consumption of social media

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued an advisory last year that warned of the 鈥済rowing evidence鈥� that links growing mental health problems to the amount of social media children and teens consume.

Nearly one-third of adolescents report using screens until midnight or later on weekdays, mostly scrolling social media, the advisory noted, citing a number of published studies. One-third of girls reported that they felt 鈥渁ddicted鈥� to their social media apps.聽

On top of that, nearly half of all children between ages 13 and 17 say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies. Another two-thirds report they鈥檙e often exposed to hate-based content on their apps.

Given this growing evidence, Dr. Murthy this summer called for a surgeon general鈥檚 warning label to be posted on social media platforms.聽

The surgeon general鈥檚 advisory also coincided with the publication of Jonathan Haidt鈥檚 鈥淭he Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,鈥� a New York Times bestselling book that observers say has put a chill in parental hearts.

Mr. Haidt argued that this generation, smartphone in hand, is at once the most overprotected and the least protected. Overprotected from the 鈥渞eal world鈥� but left alone in a vast, wild, and dangerous world online.

In February this year, Liddy testified about the dangerous spiral she experienced before a Utah House committee, sharing her story in support of legal restrictions on social media use. She鈥檚 hoping to spare others from what she experienced.

鈥淚t costs government more money when you have kids with major mental health issues,鈥� says Aimee Winder Newton, senior adviser to Governor Cox and director of the Office of Families. 鈥淎nd when you have people who end up in the criminal justice system or end up in poverty and homelessness, those are drains on government.鈥�

Liddy says she feels fortunate to have climbed out of her social media obsession. These days she owns a basic flip phone featuring a flowery case. She rarely texts her friends. But she鈥檚 even more old-school than that now:聽

鈥淚nstead, I plan times to hang out with them,鈥� she says.

Removing temptation with magnetically-locked phone pouches

Granger High School in West Valley City, Utah, has implemented a relatively new approach to restricting the use of smartphones: locking them away in a specially designed pouch that students keep with them.

Tyler Howe, principal of the 3,500-student school, does not want this innovative approach to be labeled a 鈥渂an,鈥� however. That wording denotes a negative connotation, he says. The reality might be very positive for students, and he hopes the locked pouches will create a 鈥減hone-free environment鈥� that spans bell to bell.聽

Designed by the California-based company Yondr, these soft pouches seal students鈥� phones inside with a magnetic lock. While Granger requires students to keep their phones locked the entire school day, in other schools, students can disengage these locks at designated 鈥渦nlocking bases鈥� in unrestricted areas. These pouches have also been used at concerts and comedy clubs.聽

But Mr. Howe hopes he will see fewer students bowing over their devices in the hallways and at lunch. In other words, it鈥檚 not just about reducing distractions in the classroom.

鈥淲e want to see healthy, embodied relationships and the communication that happens face-to-face, smile to smiles,鈥� he says.

While school districts have been in many ways leading the litigation against Big Tech companies, they have also been at the forefront on the ground in trying to find the right policies to limit access to social media during school.聽

States are trying to help, again with legislation. Florida last year passed a law requiring all public school districts to ban cellphone use in the classroom. Louisiana and South Carolina did the same. States such as Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia require districts to have policies limiting student phone use.聽

Many school districts are acting on their own. Large school districts in Las Vegas and Los Angeles have announced more restrictive cellphone policies. New York City, the nation鈥檚 largest school district with 1.1 million students, is planning to ban all cellphone use during the school day, starting next year. State leaders in New York, too, are considering similar statewide measures.

NetChoice and the tech company backlash to social media restrictions

But the tech companies are fighting back. At the end of last year, under the aegis of the trade group NetChoice, the companies countersued Utah鈥檚 pioneering laws, arguing that while well-intentioned, their restrictions were unconstitutional, restricting access to public content, compromising data security, and undermining parental rights.

This forced Utah to scale back some of its efforts to limit kids鈥� use of social media in the evenings and require age verification measures. 鈥淲hether we had the perfect bill or not, we expected legal challenges,鈥� says Senator Cullimore, a floor sponsor for the legislation.

The revised bill requires social media companies to disable addictive scrolling features, boost privacy settings, and arm parents with more tools to monitor and limit their children鈥檚 time on the apps.

Opponents haven鈥檛 backed down. NetChoice updated its lawsuit after Utah鈥檚 revised legislation this year.

鈥淯tahans 鈥� not the government 鈥� should be able to determine how they and their families use technology,鈥� said Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, in a statement announcing its revisions.

At the end of July this year, however, the U.S. federal government joined the massive fray when the Senate overwhelmingly passed 91 to 3 a bill that would force social media companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm and exercise a 鈥渄uty of care鈥� to protect children.

Despite this lopsided bipartisan support, the bill faces fierce resistance from tech companies. It also has drawn deep concerns from free speech advocates like those at the American Civil Liberties Union, who argue these measures would chill individual expression and harm marginalized groups.聽

Young people remain divided on social media controls

Earlier this year, Canada, meanwhile, introduced its own nationwide Online Harms Act, which attempts to reduce harmful content on social media sites.

Some younger people, not surprisingly, are also a bit skeptical of the absolutes they are hearing in the debate. Canadian Liv Miller knows how powerful social media is. As a middle schooler, when she got her first digital device, she remembers having to navigate new social norms in friend groups.

Some of the lessons were hard. She was harassed online after she founded a mental health initiative called Bridges of Hope. But today she works for Jack.org, a charity empowering youth to tackle mental health challenges, and she uses social media often to advocate for mental health resources for young people.

It has been a lifeline for LGBTQ+ communities in rural areas, for example. And schools and workplaces increasingly demand a high level of social media savvy.聽

鈥淚 think we should be empowering youth to be part of these conversations, giving them space to say, 鈥榃ell, actually, that is what my boundaries are,鈥� because they are experts in their own experience,鈥� Ms. Miller says.

American Charlie Bartels, heading to Ohio University this fall, agrees that apps are not the problem. She recalls scrolling on social media for up to six hours a day in middle school, fixating on photos of women who seemed impossibly thin. She wished to be like them. But she says these are conversations for parents, teachers, and kids.

鈥淚f your kids are struggling with body issues and your first concern is, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 wrong with the app?鈥� and not, 鈥榃hy didn鈥檛 they feel like they could talk to me?鈥� 鈥� that鈥檚 a problem,鈥� Ms. Bartels says.聽

鈥淲hen politicians are like, 鈥楾his app is ruining my kids鈥� 鈥� have you talked to your kids this week? Have you had a meaningful conversation this week?鈥�

At the Cullimore household in Utah, conversations about social media arise more often than the senator鈥檚 kids probably want. But they鈥檙e still allowed to use their phones.聽

For the younger children, that generally means surfing YouTube. The older siblings have progressed to mostly using Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Kynda, now 18 years old and in college, says she supports the Utah legislation her father sponsored. 鈥淚 feel like that could be really helpful with a lot of things,鈥� she says, mentioning the ability to complete homework without constant distractions.

Utah鈥檚 new social media restrictions are set to be in place Oct. 1 this year. Kapri鈥檚 not so sure schools need to entirely banish phones, though.

鈥淚n class, I get it because it鈥檚 kind of disrespectful,鈥� the 16-year-old says. 鈥淏ut I feel like if we鈥檙e just having our free time, we should be able to have our phone.鈥� Still, she adds, 鈥淲hen we鈥檙e with our friends, we try and not be on our phones.鈥�

Unless they鈥檙e filming a TikTok dance.

Staff writer Danish Bajwa contributed reporting from Boston.

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