Ohio lawmakers propose warning labels for social media

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Two state lawmakers have proposed new legislation requiring a government warning label to be displayed on social media platforms with addictive properties. 

House Bill 808 — sponsored by state Representatives Christine Cockley (D-Columbus) and Jodi Salvo (R-Bolivar) — defines an addictive social media platform as one that heavily relies on push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll and other features that are designed to keep someone actively using the platform for indefinite stretches of time. 

“When it is absolutely designed to keep us scrolling is what we’re looking for,” Salvo said.  “As long as they continue to feed us information that we’re already curious about, you know as well as I, five minutes can turn into 25 minutes, which can turn into a lot longer than that once you start.”

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“I actually see it more as a nudge,” Cockley said. “While the user is on the platform — potentially doomscrolling — it would be a pop up that says hey this platform can be addictive, now’s a good time to put your phone down and do something else.”

According to Dr. Kristen Lindquist, a psychology professor and emotional development expert at the Ohio State University, it’s little wonder why some social media features can be so addictive — they are literally designed to feed us what we want. Such platforms take advantage of the biological pleasure that social interaction brings to the human brain. 

 
“Across our evolutionary history as humans, other people are really important for our survival, and we care a lot about other people,” Lindquist said. “Social media, unlike normal face-to-face social behavior, is omnipresent.” 

 That omnipresence, says Cockley, has made it easy for kids to compare themselves to one another, or to celebrities and influencers, which can lead to depression, anxiety, lack of sleep and academic struggles. 

“If they are not feeling like they can learn and grow and they’re safe and they’re confident in who they are, it makes it much more difficult to show up fully as a student,” Cockley said. “I think this bill will help remind students and remind youth that it’s okay to put your phone down, it’s OK to stop comparing yourself to your peers and to these influencers and go explore and figure out who you are.”

But the question of social media’s addictiveness is nuanced, according to Lindquist.

“The converging evidence is suggesting that social media is not bad for everyone,” Lindquist said. “Kids who are otherwise doing well, who can control it seem fine, but same goes for substance use. People engage in various substances and as long as they can control it and they’re not abusing it, it’s fine. It’s for the subset of people who are not doing well, who maybe have lower self-esteem or depressive symptoms, who are engaging with certain content online, it’s this sort of subset that ends up having the worst mental health outcomes.” 

Lindquist also warned that a lot of times, when adults tell adolescents not to do something, it only makes that activity more appealing. 

“I think it’s important that something is done to control adolescents’ use of social media,” Lindquist said. “Whether warning labels themselves are gonna be the right answer, [they] might be better than nothing, but there’s some nuance there.”