How does social media legislation impact adolescent well-being?
overview
Our investigation has three main components: (1) legislative outreach; (2) natural experiment; and (3) adolescent focus groups. More on each of these components is below.
1. Legislative Outreach
Research is at its best when it does not exist in a vacuum, but rather is used to make a real-world impact. By understanding the effects and effectiveness of various kinds of social media legislation, we aim to distribute our findings to legislative bodies so that policymakers can use data-driven insights when crafting future legislation. Our lab has met with lawmakers across the political spectrum, including the offices of Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). These offices have been deeply involved in social media legislation—Markey is the sponsor of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and Blackburn and Blumenthal are co-sponsors of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Having now heard what outcomes policymakers are most interested in, we then plan to disseminate our findings to these lawmaking bodies so that our discoveries can be used when formulating policy.
2. Natural experiment
We are studying three social media laws going into effect in different state and national jurisdictions: (1) Australia’s Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024; (2) Nebraska’s Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act; and (3) Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act. We are using the implementation of this legislation as a natural experiment, surveying adolescents in each of these jurisdictions before and after the relevant legislation is implemented. We are also surveying adolescents from neighboring jurisdictions without these laws to serve as a control comparison. We are examining what effect each piece of legislation has on adolescent mental health and well-being outcomes, how effective each legislation is in reaching its intended purpose (i.e., are people finding ways to get around the restrictions) and monitoring if unintended consequences appear.
3. focus groups
Social media legislation restricting adolescent use is crafted by adults, not adolescents. We want to learn what the people being affected–teenagers–actually think about social media legislation. We are conducting in-person focus groups throughout the DMV area to talk to teenagers and find out their views. How do they feel about these laws? What kinds of regulations would they like to see? Do they support legislative interventions in some areas, but not others? These are the kinds of questions we hope our focus groups will help answer. The aim of the focus groups is to speak to real teens about real experiences, getting more details and insight than we could glean from surveys alone.