Gov. Maura Healey is calling for social media companies to put caps in place limiting how long teenagers can use their apps each day.
In Beacon Hill’s latest bid to regulate youth social media use, Healey said Tuesday she will file legislation proposing a suite of measures that “actually take the power away from social media platforms and give that power to young people and to parents.”
“Some of us enjoy scrolling at the end of the day, right?” Healey told reporters. “But there’s a time and a place for that. And what we also know to be true is that social media is driving a tremendous amount of anxiety, hurting kids in a number of different ways.”
Healey’s office said her legislation would require “social media platforms to implement an age assurance system and establish strong default safety settings for users under 18.”
The default settings would limit cumulative use to two hours per day and disable what Healey describes as “addictive design features,” including infinite scrolls, auto-play, and algorithm-based feeds. They would also turn off location tracking features and restrict platform access overnight and during school hours, according to Healey’s office.
For users age 15 and under, only a parent or guardian would be able to modify or remove those default settings.
Healey did not provide specifics on how the two-hour limit would apply across different social media platforms. Asked how one platform would know how much time a teenager spent on a different company’s app — how Instagram could tally a user’s time on TikTok, for instance — Healey said, “They know.”
Healey and Deputy Attorney General Sara Cable said it would be up to social media companies to figure out how to make the two-hour cap work in practice.
“I think anyone who has used social media understands that the apps know a whole lot about you, not just from your use of the app, but from your device off-app or from your other apps,” Cable said. “There is an ability to talk to each other.”
Healey teased forthcoming social media regulations in her State of the Commonwealth speech in January.
Her proposal lands the week after the Massachusetts House passed legislation to ban kids under 14 from using social media and otherwise restrict youth usage. Critics of the House bill say requiring platforms to collect personal data to verify users’ ages creates privacy risks and threatens anonymity online.
Healey said her legislation “isn’t a ban” and described it as “complementary” to the House bill. She said she hopes to see both become law and that there “may be other good ideas” as the House’s measure advances to negotiations with the state Senate.
“I think that the good news here is that across government and government leadership, you see a recognition … social media and the addiction in social media is out of control and it’s harming our young people,” Healey said. “And we’re committed to coming forward with solutions out of Massachusetts to address that.”
