By Texas State Representative Jared Patterson
We are victims of our own success in a lot of ways. Advancements in technology have allowed for astounding results on everything from healthcare to energy development. However, technology has also made parenting harder than it’s ever been. In fact, recent polling suggests two thirds of parents blame technology and social media for making their responsibilities more difficult. There’s a well-substantiated driver behind the trend of parents struggling to keep up and parent the way they want, which is the crisis of social media and smart device addiction. As we send our kids back to school, our new schedules must include protecting our kids from social media.
Social media companies do not care that the legal minimum age for their platforms is 13 years old. Instead, they continue to ignore child safety laws, doubling down on their efforts to addict children as young as possible. We know young children are spending, on average, up to six hours a day glued to a screen; a staggering nine hours per day for teenagers. Now, nearly 1-in-5 young teens are admitting to being on sites like YouTube and TikTok “almost constantly,” meaning every second they can use social media, they do. This is cut and dry addiction to which the United States Surgeon General compared the addiction of social media to that of smoking cigarettes.
Jonathan Haidt’s new book, “The Anxious Generation,” expertly explains how social media usage amongst young people relates to all sorts of social, educational, and psychological woes. In one sentence, he captures what parents across Texas feel viscerally: the kids just aren’t alright. He’s right, and this constant use of social media means kids have become less “alright” each year since 2010.
As a father, what’s harder for me to absorb are the personal experiences from constituents throughout my district who feel like they are losing their children to social media. In some cases, parents are having to bury their children due to heinous TikTok challenges that encourage children to choke themselves or to predators taking advantage of lax social media safety standards to profit off sickening “sextortion” schemes on Instagram. Teen suicide rates have never been higher.
These are not isolated instances, it’s an epidemic which is killing children. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that at least 15 children died due to one individual TikTok challenge over 18 months. Others, meanwhile, are shells of a once happy and healthy child as he or she battles one of the various skyrocketing mental health disorders associated with increased social media usage.
With three young children, I relate deeply to the questions and concerns raised by other parents. Now as a lawmaker, let me make my response abundantly clear: change MUST occur to empower parents and keep kids safe online. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan recently appointed me to chair a joint committee to study the effects of media on our children. With this committee, we plan to hold committee hearings soon after the start of this school year, where we will explore what other states are doing on this issue as well as hearing the concerns and ideas of parents across the state.
Yes, we are victims of our own success. Kids in the US have never had more: more anxiety, more depression, and overall, more mental health disorders. It’s truly the epidemic of the century. We must protect our children from this trend which we have never faced before; our children are vulnerable to the social media empire. This school year, our schedules in the legislature and across the nation must include protecting kids from social media.
Texas State Representative Jared Patterson (R – Frisco) currently serves as a Chairman of the Joint Study Committee on the Effects of Media on Minors and as the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Protecting Texas LNG Exports. He also serves on the House Committees on Transportation, Licensing and Administrative Procedures, and Calendars. Patterson was first elected to the Texas House in 2018.
