Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) called for the minimum age at which children can use social media to be raised from 13 to 16.
Houchin said at a Punchbowl News event Wednesday that tweens and teens under 16 are at a critical age where they are susceptible to eating disorders, peer pressure and a higher risk of suicide.
“Most American children are not emotionally mature enough to handle these applications, and we should put some safeguards in place, which is why I’ve been on this mission,” Houchin said.
Harmful features: Houchin warned about AI chatbots that encourage suicidal ideation among children, as well as disappearing messages that leave parents without access to who their teens are talking to.
Houchin said children have access to other users from around the world through their social media, and yet parents aren’t able to review those conversations because of disappearing messages.
“We would be completely irresponsible to not try to take a look at putting some of these safeguards in place, like not letting the disappearing messages be available to kids,” Houchin said.
Houchin said she remains hopeful for change because of parents’ involvement in advocating for safeguards and the bipartisan concern in Congress about children’s online safety.
“Maintaining the status quo at 13 is just not going to be OK in this era of social media,” Houchin said. “It gives me hope that it’s bipartisan, that there’s so many people doing really good work.”
Fireside chat: Garth Graham, head of YouTube Health, said the social media platform hires medical professionals to review health content on the platform.
“The whole concept here is to bring clinical expertise to scale on the platform,” Graham, a medical doctor, said. “To get to a lot of the issues that parents are concerned about, and making sure that we’re doing it the right way.”
Graham said parents should not shy away from talking to their children about social media. Instead, he said, they should understand what their kids are looking at, set boundaries based on their online habits and simply talk with their kids.
“Our kids are digital first. Shielding them in some kind of oblivious place is not to their best benefit,” Graham said.
He suggested allowing kids to “develop appropriately and understand these digital tools and evolve, so that they can become better than we were.”
You can watch the full recording here.
