Senate support for a bill requiring social media platforms to display a mental health warning gained support Tuesday when Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) announced he is now backing the “Stop the Scroll” legislation.
Along with the warning, social media platforms would be required to direct users to mental health resources they could contact if their mental health is damaged by their use of social media.
The mandated message would:
- Appear each time a person accesses a social media platform, via a pop-up box.
- Require the use to acknowledge acceptance of the risk in order to access the platform.
- Be redisplayed once an hour, requiring the user to repeatedly acknowledge the risk after every hour of continuous use of the platform.
- Direct users to federal resources for those experiencing mental health struggles, including the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Platform providers who fail to comply would be subjected to the same penalties the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hands out to those who engage in unfair or deceptive trade practices.
“The Stop the Scroll Act would help young people grasp the mental health risks that come with social media,” Sen. Husted said Tuesday in a press release announcing that he has thrown his support to the bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.). In 2023, Sen. Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to seek treatment for clinical depression.
Sen. Husted cites a 2024 opinion piece by Biden Administration Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy calling for social media warning labels, in which Murthy claims that “the harms of social media” are at least as great as “those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food.”
“On average, children and teenagers spend approximately 3.5 hours a day on social media, and spending more than three hours a day on social media platforms increases the risk for mental health problems—including depression and anxiety—according to a recent study,” Sen. Husted says, referring to an advisory published by Surgeon General Murthy.
However, Sen. Husted fails to note that the same Surgeon General’s advisory acknowledges that it’s unknown whether or not the impact on health of digital social interactions are any different than those of in-person interactions.
Additionally, it suggests that there are “unique contributions of social media behavior to social connectedness, social isolation, and mental health symptoms”:
“Studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support.
“Seven out of ten adolescent girls of color report encountering positive or identity-affirming content related to race across social media platforms.
“A majority of adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%).
“In addition, research suggests that social media-based and other digitally-based mental health interventions may also be helpful for some children and adolescents by promoting help-seeking behaviors and serving as a gateway to initiating mental health care.”
Thus, the Stop the Scroll legislation conflates correlation with causation and discourages use of and encumbers access to social media platforms in an attempt to solve an unproven mental health problem.