Idaho lawmakers are trying to bring down levels of social media addiction in children by introducing new regulations for some of the world’s biggest companies.
House Bill 542 would require companies like Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, to treat account users who are 16 years of age or younger differently by default.
All privacy options would automatically be set to their strictest settings.
The bill would also ban paid advertisements, endless scrolling feeds or excessive push notifications without parental permission for these younger account users.
Each of the features could be reinstated if the company receives parental permission.
“The dopamine hit that you get from a social media addiction is the same as any lethal drug,” said Rep. Jaron Crane (R-Nampa), who sponsors the bill.
The proposal here comes as opening statements began in Los Angeles in a trial accusing Meta and Google, which owns Youtube, of deliberately addicting and harming children, according to the Associated Press.
In addition to slamming social media’s potentially addictive nature, Crane pointed to bullies using these platforms to torment classmates or other children.
“It’s one thing for someone to cyber bully one of us in this room as a public servant. But when you’re a kid dealing with some unknown profile on a social media platform, the way in which they respond to that is entirely different,” he said.
If passed and signed into law, the bill would only target social media companies that rake in more than $1 billion in advertising revenue annually.
It would be up to each platform to determine a user’s age based on the proprietary data they collect – think search history or content a user engages with – over many hours of use.
If a company violated these regulations, they could be sued by families in civil court.
Most Idaho House lawmakers agreed with the bill’s mission.
“We’re all addicted to this,” said Rep. Joe Alfieri (R-Coeur d’Alene). “There’s no doubt about it.”
Alfieri said the proliferation of smartphones have dropped the overall generational intelligence of Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012).
He pointed to congressional testimony from Dr. Jared Horvath last month outlining his findings that this generation’s cognitive ability has declined compared to millennials – the first time that finding has been recorded since data began being collected in the late 19th century.
“Generation Z is less intelligent than the previous generation and it is because of these devices,” Alfieri said.
A handful of Republicans voted against the bill’s passage, which now goes to a Senate committee for consideration.
Copyright 2026 Boise State Public Radio
