Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of META, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, testified before a jury last month regarding the alleged addictiveness of social media and its potential effects on the mental health of minors.
Zuckerberg defended his company’s policies and dismissed accusations that it tried to get kids hooked on its products or feel bad about themselves, CNN Business reported.
“The outcome of this trial, in which a young woman, ‘Kaley,’ accuses Meta and YouTube of designing addictive features to hook her as a small child, could serve as a bellwether for hundreds of other cases” reported CNN Business. “If the companies lose, they could be on the hook for potentially billions in damages and forced to make changes to platforms that have shaped how many people live.”
The case is one of several set for this year, including one in which school districts are suing social media companies over alleged harms of social media to children.
Meanwhile, Congress is considering legislation that would put greater restrictions on social media use by minors.
Evidence Questions
Legislative proposals to restrict social media access are misguided says Christopher Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University who researches the effects of different types of media on behavior and mental health.
“It’s largely a moot issue as far as the data [are] concerned,” said Ferguson.
“The evidence just doesn’t support these policy efforts, but, you know, the politicians don’t care about the evidence,” said Ferguson.
The Heartland Institute’s Health Care News has covered court cases over possible effects of social media on young people’s mental health.
Understanding Normative Use
Many of those pushing greater restrictions on social media use by minors are basing their opinions on misperceptions of what constitutes normative social media use by young people, says Joe Mullin, a senior policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Supporters of such efforts focus “on the sort of most horrific edge cases of things that happen on the internet and do not account at all for everyday use,” said Mullin.
“The idea that kids under 13 are like sneaking off somehow to an internet connected device, making a fake account, and being active on social media is a charade,” said Mullin.
Recent research shows that although most children under 13 have social media accounts, only about 5% have a secret account, says Mullin.
For older teenagers, the public perception tends to be that their use of social media is all negative and harmful, says Mullin.
“They’re thinking about kids who are getting abused or sucked in in some terrible way by the internet,” said Mullin.
In comments to Budget & Tax News and in an article he wrote for EFF, Mullin said more-standard uses of social media by young people include listening to music, watching videos for entertainment, and learning about things they find interesting.
Greater restrictions on access to social media would make it more difficult for young people to develop into informed citizens, says Mullin.
“The most powerful person in the world is the president of the United States, who kind of innovated the practice of making important policy announcements on social media,” said Mullin
Another important factor is that local fire and police departments often use social media to communicate with their communities, notes Mullin.
Distracting from Real Problems
The focus on social media and smart phones distracts people and policymakers from more serious problems within both families and schools, Ferguson says.
“American schools suck,” said Ferguson. “They are highly stressful and highly boring … and they’ve probably gotten worse with more regulation. They’re teaching to the tests with these standardized tests. They’ve taken a lot of creativity away from the teachers. There’s this whole Common Core disaster that’s occurred. American schools are just terrible.
“I think a lot of this too is schools are kicking the can down the street a little bit,” said Ferguson. “They love to blame the cell phones, and they make it look like they’re doing something useful by banning cell phones even though we have the data now that suggests it doesn’t help.”
Ferguson has argued there is a lack of evidence to support the purported benefits of banning smart phones in schools, in an editorial for the World Journal of Pediatrics.
ID Requirements for Internet Access
The legislative and legal efforts to keep minors off social media could easily lead to laws requiring everyone to show an ID to access the internet, says Mullin.
“[Government officials] are talking about their fears about harm to children, because if they sort of told people the whole truth, which is that they really wouldn’t mind if you had to show your ID to use the internet, people would reject that,” said Mullin. “That’s an extremely unpopular idea.
“People actually don’t want to upload their ID to look at the internet,” said Mullin. “People don’t want to upload their ID before they … hunt for relationship or medical advice or medical services. … People don’t want to upload their ID in unsecure environments.”
Uploading an ID to access online content differs considerably from showing one in the real world, says Mullin.
“When you have to show your ID on the internet, you have to upload it, and a copy gets made and kept,” said Mullin. “In the real world it’s a momentary glance.”
That presents a big risk because in the event of a data leak, criminals could get access to all the personal information on the government-issued IDs stored by a company responsible for verifying people’s identities or ages, says Mullin.
Error-Prone Biometric Tools
The use of biometric identification or age-estimation software is also problematic, even if such tools capture less information than what is on a government-issued ID, says Mullin.
“With a face scan and biometrics, I think the possibility of error increases,” said Mullin. “That stuff just doesn’t work that well.”
Submitting to a face scan creates a chance you could “be mistaken for someone else, like someone who’s on a government watchlist … [or] in trouble with the law,” said Mullin.
Family Decisions
Decisions about how children use social media should be made at the family level, not by the government, says Mullin. Parents have access to effective ways of limiting their children’s screen time, says Mullin.
“Parental control software is fine, and generally we want more options and we want those options to be easier to use,” said Mullin.
Daniel Nuccio, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is a spring 2026 College Fix journalism fellow, reporter, and editorial associate at The Heartland Institute.
