Social media is "absolutely" causing the rates of anxiety, loneliness, and depression to grow in the United States, particularly among younger users, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday.
"I think it’s obvious to anyone who spends any time on social media or has kids," the Utah Republican said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I have four kids. I’ve seen what’s happened to them as they’ve spent time on social media, and their friends, that this is absolutely causing these terrible increases, these hockey stick-like increases that we are seeing in anxiety, depression, and self-harm amongst our youth."
Utah passed legislation earlier this year requiring social media users to verify their age to use accounts, which put restrictions on how and when users under the age of 18 could use sites, triggering challenges from a trade group representing Facebook parent company Meta, TikTok, and X, formerly Twitter.
First Amendment advocates also argue the law, which takes effect in 2024, infringes on free speech rights, but Cox said he is not impressed by big tech's arguments against the legislation.
"They know this is harming our kids," he said. "They’re covering it up. They’re doing everything possible to take advantage of our kids for their own gain and we’re not going to stand for that, so we’re still pushing forward."
Cox acknowledged that social media use is also bad for adults, but "especially bad for our young people."
"If you saw a 63% increase in cancer amongst young women in our country, we would be moving heaven and earth to do anything possible to change that, and yet, we've kind of just sat on our hands and said, I guess this is the new normal," said Cox.
He added that there is a potential upside to social media if it is "used properly and in the correct way, but that's not how these apps are designed. That's the problem. They're designed to addict our kids very intentionally and these addictive features make it impossible for our kids to get the upside, the benefit out of that without all of the downside."
Instead, young people are getting "terrible content," said Cox.
"[With] the rabbit holes that they end up going down, these algorithms that are destroying lives, somebody has to step in," said Cox. "We're not trying to ban social media completely from your kids. We're trying to make it safe for your kids."
Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, vice chair of the National Governor's Association, who appeared on the program with Cox, said he agrees that social media is playing a role in a nationwide mental health crisis.
However, he said it should be left up to parents to watch their children's social media use, not the government.
"I certainly agree with the diagnosis that Gov. Cox did, and I have some sympathy for that approach, but I do think at the end of the day, the government can’t parent kids," Polis said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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