7 ms·

Governor Newsom signs bill to protect kids from social media addiction

66 points by Cyclone_ 2y ago

pknerd 2y ago
Nothing but praise but I wonder how can it be implemented? Facebook and other social platforms already have set an age limit that kids usually bypass.
- dotancohen 2y ago
  Each company's policy of seting an age limit is a legal tool to protect the company, not a social tool to protect the children. This law, while also being a legal tool, is specifically designed to be implemented with social tools by the professionals who work with children.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Banning phones from school as the default should have been included.
- Larrikin 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - chii 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - m8s 2y ago
      This is a really gross comment and should be removed.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    Fix for that is completely different.
  - banku_brougham 2y ago
    This is meant to be darkly humorous I'm sure, but this question is a serious one. I think the market is ripe for an application that could be a part of the educational suite installed on the in-class tablets, which could be enabled only during lockdown. No need to overdesign the architecture at this stage, but the requirements are pretty simple. Each user could be configured via school it adminstrator to allow video chat connections only to parent/gaurdian devices with the app installed.
    - Larrikin 2y ago
      As a parent, school shootings are the real serious issue and one the kids actually care about as well. Phones should be banned like Pokemon cards were banned. Bringing them to school is fine, using after class and even lunch is fine, but having them out in class gets them taken away and detention for repeat offenses.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      > this question is a serious one the question may be serious but the "solution" (kids have a phone so they can call their parents before they get shot) is not there are other ways to prevent school shootings, but because we have so many people in this country who like to play with guns we can't get it together enough to take the measures needed that would greatly reduce and perhaps totally eliminate school shootings (which are an almost uniquely American experience, and as a parent with kids in school, it's frankly terrifying and I couldn't give 2 f's about what the founding fathers wrote 250 years ago when the context and reasons for the 2A, which made sense at the time, have nothing to do with our modern era. It's like saying "well our illustrious all all-knowing founding fathers didn't find it necessary to ban slavery in the Constitution, and in fact, provided for it (3/5s etc.), so we should bow to their infinite wisdom and continue to allow it today."
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      As someone with friends and coworkers who spent their last minutes last year on WhatsApp trying to communicate with family, this is a very bad idea.
  - jedberg 2y ago
    Saying this is similar to saying "I won't fly 500 miles, flying is dangerous, I'd rather drive!" The truth of the matter is that school shootings are still much rarer than the daily use of phones in school. Talk to a current middle/high school teacher. They will tell you that in most classes there are at least some kids on their phone the entire time, and there is nothing they can do about it. And those kids distract the ones around them. Kids get "emergency" texts from home midday, and it turns out to be stuff like "I put your socks away for you". They can't take the phone away anymore because if they do, a parent comes in making the same argument you did, or they accuse the school of theft. A statewide ban of phones during class time would at least give the local administration and district some air cover in these cases to confiscate phones that are being used during class.
    - RoddaWallPro 2y ago
      With (I assume) cell phone use prevalent in every single classroom in the nation that hasn't banned them, and school shootings a minuscule probability, "much rarer" is doing a lot of work here hah.
- imgabe 2y ago
  I don't know why this is hard. At least in the classroom if not during the entire school day. You get a cabinet with a bunch of cubbie holes, kids put their phone in at the beginning of class, they take it out at the end of class. They can even lock and each kid takes a key with them if theft is a concern. It doesn't seem that complicated. They have these things outside every SCIF. I know they exist.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    So if a child says they don’t have a phone are you going to search them? But you don’t even have to take the phone out of the possession of the student. They use these at some phone free concerts. https://www.overyondr.com/phone-locking-pouch https://www.overyondr.com/phone-locking-pouch
    - lovecg 2y ago
      That’s exactly what they use at some of the schools that tried it (and there’s an arms race where some kids figured out how to hack these devices and unlock them). Locking up thousands and thousands of dollars worth of phones for the day is way too much liability for a school otherwise.
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        Society can choose to pass on bowing to the God of insurance in this case :)
    - Gys 2y ago
      I imagine it is not difficult to make a phone detector. A phone is sending almost constantly. If a phone has to be in flight mode the whole lesson then there is no reason to bring one
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        Even airlines can’t really tell when all of the phones are in airplane mode…
- duxup 2y ago
  I’d rather let administration for individual districts craft their own rules. They have done well in districts my kids have been in. State wide top down rules is too disconnected from the front lines for me to believe they’re anything but legislative theater.
  - jedberg 2y ago
    The problem is that districts and schools have tried this, but then parents complain and threaten to sue about "stealing the phone" and such. The district doesn't have a leg to stand on. They need a state law to back them up so that they can tell the parents to take it to their legislature instead of the principal.
    - danjl 2y ago
      This law affects companies, not students, as it should be. Enforcing limits on students is the job of parents, not teachers or police.
      - jedberg 2y ago
        I'm well aware of what this law does, but we are not talking about this law in this thread. > Enforcing limits on students is the job of parents Luckily in California we understand the value of protecting kids over uninformed adults. That's why we require vaccines to attend school.
        danjl 2y ago
        This is about individual freedoms, not public health, and is directly related to this post. Unfortunately, no law can protect against poor parenting.
        jedberg 2y ago
        > Unfortunately, no law can protect against poor parenting. Oh, but they most certainly can. See the aforementioned vaccine laws. Or the law that provides free breakfast and lunch to every California student regardless of income. Of the law that requires dental coverage for anyone in the state under 18 (and provides it to those who can't afford it). No matter how bad your parent is about feeding you, at least you know you'll get breakfast and lunch every school day, and you can get your teeth checked. There are many laws that protect against poor parenting.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  as a parent with kids in school I am 100% in favor of this. In my son's middle school schools are not allowed in class but that puts the burden of enforcement on the teachers instead of just making it a blanket rule that you can't have it at school period
- danjl 2y ago
  You can't enforce silly laws. Who would enforce this ban? Teachers? That would be a school regulation, not a state law. Or do you want police walking around school arresting kids with phones? Do you enforce all of your guidance for your kids using legislation? A real solution to the distractions and harm that phones cause when used at school is harder, of course.
  - lotsoweiners 2y ago
    My child goes to a charter school in Arizona. Their policy is that phones are stored in lockers. If a kid is caught with their phone in the building then the phone is confiscated and brought to the office. The parents are notified and the phone is only given back to the parent. I don’t understand why something similar couldn’t be implemented in public schools thus requiring no state law.
- CuriousCosmic 2y ago
  This gets messy because you already have problems with (mostly substitute) teachers ripping out implants (ex: insulin pump), cutting wires/tubes, or preventing kids from using their phone to monitor blood sugar, etc because they try to be "tough" on the no phones rule.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    you are suggesting that life-threatening levels of dependency requiring a phone to continue to live, is common enough to warrant public policy ?
    - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
      Yes. There are a lot of devices that support people with disabilities that nowadays use a phone as their interface. In the past most had their own devices but phones are near universally available so they have become the go-to interface for most of these devices.
- Elfener 2y ago
  Hungary just banned phones (and also all devices capable of connecting to the internet, and/or capable of recording audio and video) from school. I'm a student in an IT technical school. The only thing this affected is now instead of my classmates playing on their phones during class, they're now loudly playing card games - and now people who do want to learn can't because the teacher has to constantly stop and yell at the people playing cards. I think students should be able to do whatever they want during breaks - they can do actually useful things with their devices, other than scrolling social media or playing games. Also, this new ban completely eliminated kahoot and similar, since phones are collected at the start of the day and giving them out for a class involves incredible amounts of paperwork. (So much for modern teaching/learning methods)
- queuebert 2y ago
  Seriously. Teachers don't even let kids go to the bathroom without permission. How phones were allowed by default boggles the mind.
- catgirlinspace 2y ago
  i’m so glad to be finished with high school with all this happening. as a trans girl who was closeted in high school, being able to use my phone in between classes to text my accepting friends was the only way i survived. it sucks seeing that legislation doesn’t seem to consider that at all really.
  - heavyset_go 2y ago
    If you listen to legislators pushing social media bans, they are taking cases like this into intense consideration in order to maximize the damage it would have on kids like you. From [1]: > A co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill intended to protect children from the dangers of social media and other online content appeared to suggest in March that the measure could be used to steer kids away from seeing transgender content online. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/senator-appears-suggest-bipartisan-bill-will-censor-transgender-conten-rcna103479 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/sena...
    - catgirlinspace 2y ago
      :( i hate this country…
  - jkinto 2y ago
    [flagged]
- Eumenes 2y ago
  I use to be pro-phone ban in schools but with all the creepy crap going on in public school systems, I think kids should be able to record their teachers/other students/staff.
- AceyMan 2y ago
  California already implemented that separately. Los Angeles Unified district opened the fall term enforcing the prohibition; the statewide mandate begins 2025.
wonderwonder 2y ago
Florida already passed a similar law. Nice to see both left and right can agree that some things are common sense.
- thruway516 2y ago
  This. This and the recent trend to hold parents of juvenile mass shooters to account if they enabled the kid gives me hope that there our still functioning parts of our collective brains not completely rotted by the culture wars and twitter/x/facebook
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    Agree but I want to see this enforced not just on kids that walk into a school and opens fire. I want it enforced in large urban areas. Any minor that opens fire, their parents need to be arrested. The law is currently only being applied to kids that get their hands on so called assault rifles. It needs to be applied to handguns in urban areas that comprise the majority of shootings by minors.
    - y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
      I only support this if the minor is determined to have obtained the weapon from a parent that was negligent in preventing access to that weapon. E.g. when a parent fails to lock the weapons in a safe or purchases weapons for the child. I do not support this in instances where the minor unknowingly gets access to weapons behind the parent's back (illegally through telegram for example or through their friends). As someone with a troubled teen and a witness to numerous other parents dealing with troubled teens, it's virtually impossible to prevent them from doing whatever they want these days unless you literally lock them up 24/7. Even then they will weaponize reporting you to CPS with lies about abuse. Many of these kids are growing up in perfectly decent homes and taught well by their parents, but they get influenced by their peers to cause trouble.
      - bradlys 2y ago
superkuh 2y ago
It's crazy how far from scientific consensus these extremist states on both "sides" of the USA have strayed in their performative legislation. There is no such thing as social media addiction no matter how many times celebrities, politicians, and scammer detox camp repeat it. It's not that the DSM V or ICD 10 haven't addressed the issues. They repeatedly have and each time come away saying there's no evidence to support using the word addiction to describe computer or other rich multimedia system usage. If this were 1800s it'd be a bill banning newspaper addiction. 1900s banning electrical addiction. 1920s, radio addiction, 1950s TV addiction. Whatever is the big new thing involving lots of money (and so attention from these kinds of people). But it's not just funny sad: it also has real effects on real people and invokes the use of force in a situation where there is no coercion or damage being done.
- tayo42 2y ago
  Do you just not like the word "addiction" being used? Or you really don't think there are negative side effects from social media and how companies run it and encourage use?
  - superkuh 2y ago
    I object mainly to the misuse of the word addiction. If they were not able to misuse this word then the causation of the proposed harms would shift. Imagine just for a moment that the concept of addiction does not apply here. How would the blame for the perceived harms (self reports of being sad, anxious, etc) shift? Addiction implies control and loss of volition. Removing addiction from this context and there is no control by the third parties and no loss of volition for the minors. The mitigations for the actual situation would be much different than the performative situation. Anxiety/depression in minors has indeed gone up since 2019. But the causes are not screens. Rising housing, food, etc prices relative to incomes, the whole worldwide pandemic, knowledge of environmental damage, and increasing totalitarianism and conflicts around the world account for most of that. In terms of what government can do, they can address the core issue of fractional reserve banking without periodic debt forgiveness meaning there is always more debt than money supply leading to worse lives and conflict for everyone including young people. To truly make peoples lives better we should have government act to create a sustainable system not pretend mandating what's on screens will fix things.
falcolas 2y ago
The TL;DR: for "addictive feeds" is basically blocking a feed that is built based on their previous interactions with posts (whether associated via the device or the account). Doesn't impact searches or followed feeds. So, you can still use TikTok or Facebook or Instagram, just without the hyper-personalized discovery/FYP/etc feeds. I'm cautiously optimistic, since this kind of block doesn't really create a moat around existing businesses. And frankly, I like that kind of non-personalized feed sometimes. EDIT: Downvoters, that's from the text of the bill itself. I recommend reading it if you don't trust (or don't like) this TL;DR.
- ed312 2y ago
  I wish they'd go a step further and offer this for adults too. Facebook has become the lowest common denominator communication platform (at least in my family/friend circles). It would be great to have a site to log in and periodically scroll through family photos, hear about milestones, etc. without influencers and video shorts. I'd even pay $ to have that feed without ads.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    I agree; if they're going to implement the feature, it would be awesome if adults could opt into it as well.
- aCoreyJ 2y ago
  For what ages?
  - falcolas 2y ago
    Minors - under 18.
pokstad 2y ago
Doesn’t do enough
- loeg 2y ago
  Such as?
  - pokstad 2y ago
    Ban social media entirely for minors
nbzso 2y ago
[flagged]
wg0 2y ago
It seems Internet alone brought science and commerce but social media exposed and unleashed idiots.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  There's something to be said for minimal education barriers to posting.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I almost want someone to go back and analyse lot of posts from Usenet before eternal September... Or maybe some BBS boards. See just what fraction of discourse was idiotic back then.
  - wg0 2y ago
    Would be similar I guess? But those were contained islands not optimized for engagement.
lovecg 2y ago
“Addictive feed” has quite a ring to it, doesn’t it. Conjures the image of someone eating out of a trough. It’s a good piece of legalese propaganda.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> prohibits online platforms from knowingly providing an addictive feed to a minor without parental consent totally onboard with the concept; but what is the burden of proof that a feed is "addictive"? If it falls on the state, then this probably won't have much effect (other than maybe to scare tech companies to be a bit more careful, which is maybe the best we can hope for)
- ethbr1 2y ago
  > what is the burden of proof that a feed is "addictive"? Daily use growing? So basically social media companies' KPIs.
- lovecg 2y ago
  It’s addictive if the state says it is, according to the state’s technical definition of “addictive” (personalized content, etc. - the bill has a detailed definition).
jedberg 2y ago
Instagram and TikTok saw this coming. Both have recently dropped features to meet the spirit of this law. TikTok now has "feed mirroring" for adults to use with their teens, so they can see what the algorithm is pushing at them. And Instagram now has a teen mode that lets parents choose which topics show up in their feed and disables notifications at night.
dilippkumar 2y ago
This looks stupid. If I am reading the legislation [0] correctly, teenagers now have to tell Spotify what song to play one after another, every single time one track ends. Unless someone has previously made a playlist (I think) - in which case you can only listen to playlists that you or (someone else has made) if you are a teenager. I'm surprised that the music industry let this happen to them. [0] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB976 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
- jappgar 2y ago
  oh no. how will they survive?
jl6 2y ago
I really wish legislation like this was structured as an experiment, so we could robustly determine if it worked. Otherwise someone will come along in ten years and rip it out, saying there’s no evidence it improved things.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- logicchains 2y ago
  The US is structured like an experiment; different states have different policies, so in ten years we can compare the mental health of teens in California with teens in other states without this bill and see if it made any difference.
  - jl6 2y ago
    Laboratories of democracy, I get it… but simply allowing law to vary by state is just the enabler. There’s a lot of structure you could add to make it an actual experiment.
  - justin_oaks 2y ago
    There are too many confounding factors for that to be useful.
- justin_oaks 2y ago
  The sad thing is that politicians who get these laws passed don't want to collect data about whether the laws were successful. If they collect data and it turns out the laws aren't helpful or the laws are actually harmful, then the politician's career and reputation may be trashed. But if they pretend like the law can't possibly be bad and never check on that, then they're protected.
d2049 2y ago
For this interested in topic, you might enjoy reading The Anxious Generation, which has been on the NYT nonfiction bestseller list for a while. It goes into the data on how teen mental illness rates greatly increased when smartphones (apps + the front-facing camera) and social media algorithms were developed. The harmful effects are obvious to anyone who ever interacts with kids. The book also proposes several basic changes like delaying when kids are given smartphones and disallowing phones in schools, as well as advocating for play-based schools.
- guywithabike 2y ago
  A lot of the content of that book has been thoroughly debunked. A good starting point if you’re curious: https://www.platformer.news/anxious-generation-jonathan-haidt-debate-critique/ https://www.platformer.news/anxious-generation-jonathan-haid...
  - joenot443 2y ago
    That’s a pretty poor starting point if you expect the reader to leave with the position that Haidt’s been discredited. I’m curious, have you read the book?
  - crazydoggers 2y ago
    Debunked isn’t the correct term here. That would imply that the data is false or it’s misinformation. Instead the article you linked states: On the other hand, data on this issue is mixed, and some studies contradict one another. So a better way to talk about it is that the data doesn’t yet make a cut or dry case one way or another. Another quote from the article you linked Haidt argues that waiting for stronger evidence could be even more dangerous. He writes: “If you listen to the alarm ringers and we turn out to be wrong, the costs are minimal and reversible. But if you listen to the skeptics and they turn out to be wrong, the costs are much larger and harder to reverse.” … as a mother, as someone who writes about the harms of tech and tech companies, I see his point. So even if we don’t take the data to be 100% convincing, it’s by no means “debunked” and something that we should just completely ignore.
- 2y ago
noman-land 2y ago
We're at the point where we have a pretty high percentage of about 3-4 generations of people who are probably clinically addicted to phones/social media. We're slowly starting to come to this realization as a society but escaping addiction is extremely difficult. Especially a new one, that has no name yet, that we don't understand well, that has enveloped a large percentage of us. It's definitely an uphill battle.
queuebert 2y ago
I'm sad about how smartphones have turned out. The effects are entirely dependent on how they are used. If used as a portable information retrieval device, camera, and communications tool, they make us smarter than ever before. But it seems most people have instead chosen to focus on attention-stealing data collection apps that encourage neuroticism, narcissism, and anxiety. We had envisioned something like PADDs on Star Trek or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but what we got was an jingly electronic mirror that bullies you. I don't know how we are so okay with this. Keeping phones out of schools is not the cure. Keeping evil and harmful apps off the phones is a more precise solution.
- AyyEye 2y ago
  > But it seems most people have instead chosen to focus on attention-stealing data collection apps that encourage neuroticism, narcissism, and anxiety. Most didn't actively make that choice. They were coerced, peer pressured, or otherwise tricked into making it. > We had envisioned something like PADDs on Star Trek or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but what we got was an jingly electronic mirror that bullies you. Beautifully put.
beej71 2y ago
If I lie to Facebook and say I'm a minor, can I get a non-algorithmic feed? If so, it might be usable again.
- penguin_booze 2y ago
  Facebook might know that you posted this here.

66 points by Cyclone_ 2y ago

Nothing but praise but I wonder how can it be implemented? Facebook and other social platforms already have set an age limit that kids usually bypass.

dotancohen 2y ago
Each company's policy of seting an age limit is a legal tool to protect the company, not a social tool to protect the children. This law, while also being a legal tool, is specifically designed to be implemented with social tools by the professionals who work with children.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

Banning phones from school as the default should have been included.

Larrikin 2y ago
[flagged]
- chii 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - m8s 2y ago
    This is a really gross comment and should be removed.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Fix for that is completely different.
- banku_brougham 2y ago
  This is meant to be darkly humorous I'm sure, but this question is a serious one. I think the market is ripe for an application that could be a part of the educational suite installed on the in-class tablets, which could be enabled only during lockdown. No need to overdesign the architecture at this stage, but the requirements are pretty simple. Each user could be configured via school it adminstrator to allow video chat connections only to parent/gaurdian devices with the app installed.
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    As a parent, school shootings are the real serious issue and one the kids actually care about as well. Phones should be banned like Pokemon cards were banned. Bringing them to school is fine, using after class and even lunch is fine, but having them out in class gets them taken away and detention for repeat offenses.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    > this question is a serious one the question may be serious but the "solution" (kids have a phone so they can call their parents before they get shot) is not there are other ways to prevent school shootings, but because we have so many people in this country who like to play with guns we can't get it together enough to take the measures needed that would greatly reduce and perhaps totally eliminate school shootings (which are an almost uniquely American experience, and as a parent with kids in school, it's frankly terrifying and I couldn't give 2 f's about what the founding fathers wrote 250 years ago when the context and reasons for the 2A, which made sense at the time, have nothing to do with our modern era. It's like saying "well our illustrious all all-knowing founding fathers didn't find it necessary to ban slavery in the Constitution, and in fact, provided for it (3/5s etc.), so we should bow to their infinite wisdom and continue to allow it today."
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    As someone with friends and coworkers who spent their last minutes last year on WhatsApp trying to communicate with family, this is a very bad idea.
- jedberg 2y ago
  Saying this is similar to saying "I won't fly 500 miles, flying is dangerous, I'd rather drive!" The truth of the matter is that school shootings are still much rarer than the daily use of phones in school. Talk to a current middle/high school teacher. They will tell you that in most classes there are at least some kids on their phone the entire time, and there is nothing they can do about it. And those kids distract the ones around them. Kids get "emergency" texts from home midday, and it turns out to be stuff like "I put your socks away for you". They can't take the phone away anymore because if they do, a parent comes in making the same argument you did, or they accuse the school of theft. A statewide ban of phones during class time would at least give the local administration and district some air cover in these cases to confiscate phones that are being used during class.
  - RoddaWallPro 2y ago
    With (I assume) cell phone use prevalent in every single classroom in the nation that hasn't banned them, and school shootings a minuscule probability, "much rarer" is doing a lot of work here hah.
imgabe 2y ago
I don't know why this is hard. At least in the classroom if not during the entire school day. You get a cabinet with a bunch of cubbie holes, kids put their phone in at the beginning of class, they take it out at the end of class. They can even lock and each kid takes a key with them if theft is a concern. It doesn't seem that complicated. They have these things outside every SCIF. I know they exist.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  So if a child says they don’t have a phone are you going to search them? But you don’t even have to take the phone out of the possession of the student. They use these at some phone free concerts. https://www.overyondr.com/phone-locking-pouch https://www.overyondr.com/phone-locking-pouch
  - lovecg 2y ago
    That’s exactly what they use at some of the schools that tried it (and there’s an arms race where some kids figured out how to hack these devices and unlock them). Locking up thousands and thousands of dollars worth of phones for the day is way too much liability for a school otherwise.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Society can choose to pass on bowing to the God of insurance in this case :)
  - Gys 2y ago
    I imagine it is not difficult to make a phone detector. A phone is sending almost constantly. If a phone has to be in flight mode the whole lesson then there is no reason to bring one
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Even airlines can’t really tell when all of the phones are in airplane mode…
duxup 2y ago
I’d rather let administration for individual districts craft their own rules. They have done well in districts my kids have been in. State wide top down rules is too disconnected from the front lines for me to believe they’re anything but legislative theater.
- jedberg 2y ago
  The problem is that districts and schools have tried this, but then parents complain and threaten to sue about "stealing the phone" and such. The district doesn't have a leg to stand on. They need a state law to back them up so that they can tell the parents to take it to their legislature instead of the principal.
  - danjl 2y ago
    This law affects companies, not students, as it should be. Enforcing limits on students is the job of parents, not teachers or police.
    - jedberg 2y ago
      I'm well aware of what this law does, but we are not talking about this law in this thread. > Enforcing limits on students is the job of parents Luckily in California we understand the value of protecting kids over uninformed adults. That's why we require vaccines to attend school.
      - danjl 2y ago
        This is about individual freedoms, not public health, and is directly related to this post. Unfortunately, no law can protect against poor parenting.
        jedberg 2y ago
        > Unfortunately, no law can protect against poor parenting. Oh, but they most certainly can. See the aforementioned vaccine laws. Or the law that provides free breakfast and lunch to every California student regardless of income. Of the law that requires dental coverage for anyone in the state under 18 (and provides it to those who can't afford it). No matter how bad your parent is about feeding you, at least you know you'll get breakfast and lunch every school day, and you can get your teeth checked. There are many laws that protect against poor parenting.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
as a parent with kids in school I am 100% in favor of this. In my son's middle school schools are not allowed in class but that puts the burden of enforcement on the teachers instead of just making it a blanket rule that you can't have it at school period
danjl 2y ago
You can't enforce silly laws. Who would enforce this ban? Teachers? That would be a school regulation, not a state law. Or do you want police walking around school arresting kids with phones? Do you enforce all of your guidance for your kids using legislation? A real solution to the distractions and harm that phones cause when used at school is harder, of course.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  My child goes to a charter school in Arizona. Their policy is that phones are stored in lockers. If a kid is caught with their phone in the building then the phone is confiscated and brought to the office. The parents are notified and the phone is only given back to the parent. I don’t understand why something similar couldn’t be implemented in public schools thus requiring no state law.
CuriousCosmic 2y ago
This gets messy because you already have problems with (mostly substitute) teachers ripping out implants (ex: insulin pump), cutting wires/tubes, or preventing kids from using their phone to monitor blood sugar, etc because they try to be "tough" on the no phones rule.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  you are suggesting that life-threatening levels of dependency requiring a phone to continue to live, is common enough to warrant public policy ?
  - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
    Yes. There are a lot of devices that support people with disabilities that nowadays use a phone as their interface. In the past most had their own devices but phones are near universally available so they have become the go-to interface for most of these devices.
Elfener 2y ago
Hungary just banned phones (and also all devices capable of connecting to the internet, and/or capable of recording audio and video) from school. I'm a student in an IT technical school. The only thing this affected is now instead of my classmates playing on their phones during class, they're now loudly playing card games - and now people who do want to learn can't because the teacher has to constantly stop and yell at the people playing cards. I think students should be able to do whatever they want during breaks - they can do actually useful things with their devices, other than scrolling social media or playing games. Also, this new ban completely eliminated kahoot and similar, since phones are collected at the start of the day and giving them out for a class involves incredible amounts of paperwork. (So much for modern teaching/learning methods)
queuebert 2y ago
Seriously. Teachers don't even let kids go to the bathroom without permission. How phones were allowed by default boggles the mind.
catgirlinspace 2y ago
i’m so glad to be finished with high school with all this happening. as a trans girl who was closeted in high school, being able to use my phone in between classes to text my accepting friends was the only way i survived. it sucks seeing that legislation doesn’t seem to consider that at all really.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  If you listen to legislators pushing social media bans, they are taking cases like this into intense consideration in order to maximize the damage it would have on kids like you. From [1]: > A co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill intended to protect children from the dangers of social media and other online content appeared to suggest in March that the measure could be used to steer kids away from seeing transgender content online. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/senator-appears-suggest-bipartisan-bill-will-censor-transgender-conten-rcna103479 https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/sena...
  - catgirlinspace 2y ago
    :( i hate this country…
- jkinto 2y ago
  [flagged]
Eumenes 2y ago
I use to be pro-phone ban in schools but with all the creepy crap going on in public school systems, I think kids should be able to record their teachers/other students/staff.
AceyMan 2y ago
California already implemented that separately. Los Angeles Unified district opened the fall term enforcing the prohibition; the statewide mandate begins 2025.

wonderwonder 2y ago

Florida already passed a similar law. Nice to see both left and right can agree that some things are common sense.

thruway516 2y ago
This. This and the recent trend to hold parents of juvenile mass shooters to account if they enabled the kid gives me hope that there our still functioning parts of our collective brains not completely rotted by the culture wars and twitter/x/facebook
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  Agree but I want to see this enforced not just on kids that walk into a school and opens fire. I want it enforced in large urban areas. Any minor that opens fire, their parents need to be arrested. The law is currently only being applied to kids that get their hands on so called assault rifles. It needs to be applied to handguns in urban areas that comprise the majority of shootings by minors.
  - y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
    I only support this if the minor is determined to have obtained the weapon from a parent that was negligent in preventing access to that weapon. E.g. when a parent fails to lock the weapons in a safe or purchases weapons for the child. I do not support this in instances where the minor unknowingly gets access to weapons behind the parent's back (illegally through telegram for example or through their friends). As someone with a troubled teen and a witness to numerous other parents dealing with troubled teens, it's virtually impossible to prevent them from doing whatever they want these days unless you literally lock them up 24/7. Even then they will weaponize reporting you to CPS with lies about abuse. Many of these kids are growing up in perfectly decent homes and taught well by their parents, but they get influenced by their peers to cause trouble.
    - bradlys 2y ago

superkuh 2y ago

It's crazy how far from scientific consensus these extremist states on both "sides" of the USA have strayed in their performative legislation. There is no such thing as social media addiction no matter how many times celebrities, politicians, and scammer detox camp repeat it. It's not that the DSM V or ICD 10 haven't addressed the issues. They repeatedly have and each time come away saying there's no evidence to support using the word addiction to describe computer or other rich multimedia system usage. If this were 1800s it'd be a bill banning newspaper addiction. 1900s banning electrical addiction. 1920s, radio addiction, 1950s TV addiction. Whatever is the big new thing involving lots of money (and so attention from these kinds of people). But it's not just funny sad: it also has real effects on real people and invokes the use of force in a situation where there is no coercion or damage being done.

tayo42 2y ago
Do you just not like the word "addiction" being used? Or you really don't think there are negative side effects from social media and how companies run it and encourage use?
- superkuh 2y ago
  I object mainly to the misuse of the word addiction. If they were not able to misuse this word then the causation of the proposed harms would shift. Imagine just for a moment that the concept of addiction does not apply here. How would the blame for the perceived harms (self reports of being sad, anxious, etc) shift? Addiction implies control and loss of volition. Removing addiction from this context and there is no control by the third parties and no loss of volition for the minors. The mitigations for the actual situation would be much different than the performative situation. Anxiety/depression in minors has indeed gone up since 2019. But the causes are not screens. Rising housing, food, etc prices relative to incomes, the whole worldwide pandemic, knowledge of environmental damage, and increasing totalitarianism and conflicts around the world account for most of that. In terms of what government can do, they can address the core issue of fractional reserve banking without periodic debt forgiveness meaning there is always more debt than money supply leading to worse lives and conflict for everyone including young people. To truly make peoples lives better we should have government act to create a sustainable system not pretend mandating what's on screens will fix things.

falcolas 2y ago

The TL;DR: for "addictive feeds" is basically blocking a feed that is built based on their previous interactions with posts (whether associated via the device or the account). Doesn't impact searches or followed feeds. So, you can still use TikTok or Facebook or Instagram, just without the hyper-personalized discovery/FYP/etc feeds. I'm cautiously optimistic, since this kind of block doesn't really create a moat around existing businesses. And frankly, I like that kind of non-personalized feed sometimes. EDIT: Downvoters, that's from the text of the bill itself. I recommend reading it if you don't trust (or don't like) this TL;DR.

ed312 2y ago
I wish they'd go a step further and offer this for adults too. Facebook has become the lowest common denominator communication platform (at least in my family/friend circles). It would be great to have a site to log in and periodically scroll through family photos, hear about milestones, etc. without influencers and video shorts. I'd even pay $ to have that feed without ads.
- falcolas 2y ago
  I agree; if they're going to implement the feature, it would be awesome if adults could opt into it as well.
aCoreyJ 2y ago
For what ages?
- falcolas 2y ago
  Minors - under 18.

pokstad 2y ago

Doesn’t do enough

loeg 2y ago
Such as?
- pokstad 2y ago
  Ban social media entirely for minors

nbzso 2y ago

[flagged]

wg0 2y ago

It seems Internet alone brought science and commerce but social media exposed and unleashed idiots.

ethbr1 2y ago
There's something to be said for minimal education barriers to posting.
Ekaros 2y ago
I almost want someone to go back and analyse lot of posts from Usenet before eternal September... Or maybe some BBS boards. See just what fraction of discourse was idiotic back then.
- wg0 2y ago
  Would be similar I guess? But those were contained islands not optimized for engagement.

lovecg 2y ago

“Addictive feed” has quite a ring to it, doesn’t it. Conjures the image of someone eating out of a trough. It’s a good piece of legalese propaganda.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> prohibits online platforms from knowingly providing an addictive feed to a minor without parental consent totally onboard with the concept; but what is the burden of proof that a feed is "addictive"? If it falls on the state, then this probably won't have much effect (other than maybe to scare tech companies to be a bit more careful, which is maybe the best we can hope for)

ethbr1 2y ago
> what is the burden of proof that a feed is "addictive"? Daily use growing? So basically social media companies' KPIs.
lovecg 2y ago
It’s addictive if the state says it is, according to the state’s technical definition of “addictive” (personalized content, etc. - the bill has a detailed definition).

jedberg 2y ago

Instagram and TikTok saw this coming. Both have recently dropped features to meet the spirit of this law. TikTok now has "feed mirroring" for adults to use with their teens, so they can see what the algorithm is pushing at them. And Instagram now has a teen mode that lets parents choose which topics show up in their feed and disables notifications at night.

dilippkumar 2y ago

This looks stupid. If I am reading the legislation [0] correctly, teenagers now have to tell Spotify what song to play one after another, every single time one track ends. Unless someone has previously made a playlist (I think) - in which case you can only listen to playlists that you or (someone else has made) if you are a teenager. I'm surprised that the music industry let this happen to them. [0] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB976 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

jappgar 2y ago
oh no. how will they survive?

jl6 2y ago

I really wish legislation like this was structured as an experiment, so we could robustly determine if it worked. Otherwise someone will come along in ten years and rip it out, saying there’s no evidence it improved things.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
logicchains 2y ago
The US is structured like an experiment; different states have different policies, so in ten years we can compare the mental health of teens in California with teens in other states without this bill and see if it made any difference.
- jl6 2y ago
  Laboratories of democracy, I get it… but simply allowing law to vary by state is just the enabler. There’s a lot of structure you could add to make it an actual experiment.
- justin_oaks 2y ago
  There are too many confounding factors for that to be useful.
justin_oaks 2y ago
The sad thing is that politicians who get these laws passed don't want to collect data about whether the laws were successful. If they collect data and it turns out the laws aren't helpful or the laws are actually harmful, then the politician's career and reputation may be trashed. But if they pretend like the law can't possibly be bad and never check on that, then they're protected.

d2049 2y ago

For this interested in topic, you might enjoy reading The Anxious Generation, which has been on the NYT nonfiction bestseller list for a while. It goes into the data on how teen mental illness rates greatly increased when smartphones (apps + the front-facing camera) and social media algorithms were developed. The harmful effects are obvious to anyone who ever interacts with kids. The book also proposes several basic changes like delaying when kids are given smartphones and disallowing phones in schools, as well as advocating for play-based schools.

guywithabike 2y ago
A lot of the content of that book has been thoroughly debunked. A good starting point if you’re curious: https://www.platformer.news/anxious-generation-jonathan-haidt-debate-critique/ https://www.platformer.news/anxious-generation-jonathan-haid...
- joenot443 2y ago
  That’s a pretty poor starting point if you expect the reader to leave with the position that Haidt’s been discredited. I’m curious, have you read the book?
- crazydoggers 2y ago
  Debunked isn’t the correct term here. That would imply that the data is false or it’s misinformation. Instead the article you linked states: On the other hand, data on this issue is mixed, and some studies contradict one another. So a better way to talk about it is that the data doesn’t yet make a cut or dry case one way or another. Another quote from the article you linked Haidt argues that waiting for stronger evidence could be even more dangerous. He writes: “If you listen to the alarm ringers and we turn out to be wrong, the costs are minimal and reversible. But if you listen to the skeptics and they turn out to be wrong, the costs are much larger and harder to reverse.” … as a mother, as someone who writes about the harms of tech and tech companies, I see his point. So even if we don’t take the data to be 100% convincing, it’s by no means “debunked” and something that we should just completely ignore.
2y ago

noman-land 2y ago

We're at the point where we have a pretty high percentage of about 3-4 generations of people who are probably clinically addicted to phones/social media. We're slowly starting to come to this realization as a society but escaping addiction is extremely difficult. Especially a new one, that has no name yet, that we don't understand well, that has enveloped a large percentage of us. It's definitely an uphill battle.

queuebert 2y ago

I'm sad about how smartphones have turned out. The effects are entirely dependent on how they are used. If used as a portable information retrieval device, camera, and communications tool, they make us smarter than ever before. But it seems most people have instead chosen to focus on attention-stealing data collection apps that encourage neuroticism, narcissism, and anxiety. We had envisioned something like PADDs on Star Trek or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but what we got was an jingly electronic mirror that bullies you. I don't know how we are so okay with this. Keeping phones out of schools is not the cure. Keeping evil and harmful apps off the phones is a more precise solution.

AyyEye 2y ago
> But it seems most people have instead chosen to focus on attention-stealing data collection apps that encourage neuroticism, narcissism, and anxiety. Most didn't actively make that choice. They were coerced, peer pressured, or otherwise tricked into making it. > We had envisioned something like PADDs on Star Trek or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but what we got was an jingly electronic mirror that bullies you. Beautifully put.

beej71 2y ago

If I lie to Facebook and say I'm a minor, can I get a non-algorithmic feed? If so, it might be usable again.

penguin_booze 2y ago
Facebook might know that you posted this here.