JACKSONVILLE, Fl. (FNN) — This week, House Speaker Paul Renner introduced legislation that would prohibit children under the age of 14 from becoming social media account holders. Kids ages 14 and 15 could have access to certain sites with parental consent.

Florida follows Texas, Utah in banning social media access to young children

The bill, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, follows a similar outline to that of Texas’ SCOPE Act that was passed in 2023 — albeit with a few caveats. For one, the Texas bill has a lot more stipulations on the digital service provider as companies have to ‘register the person’s age with the DSP’ in order to prevent them from altering their registered age. For Florida youth, the language in HB 3 is unclear as the bill states ‘certain’ accounts and ‘certain’ minors must be prohibited from account creation but there is little specification as to what those circumstances revolve around.

In the states News Release, Ron DeSantis stated “Social media harms students in a variety of ways,” and that statement has some merit considering the impact that social media use has on behavior as a whole within the classroom. Its evident that social media has created a culture of attention-seeking in ways that can be harmful towards kids futures.

Whether it be recording themselves in class for a TikTok dance or prank, or recording themselves fighting and committing crimes inadvertently; these type of behaviors have been on the rise over the past decade as ‘viral culture’ has become a new norm. This phenomenon has been well documented as the APA has published:

“over 50% of teens reporting at least one symptom of clinical dependency on social media.”

This type of dependency has become all too pervasive on school campuses around the nation. Anecdotally, as a former educator at an elementary school I previously worked at, the kids in 4th and 5th grade had an outburst of mass Snapchat chat rooms that started real-life altercations on school grounds and around the neighborhood. The school ultimately decided that an outright ban on those group chats would be the best way forward and it seems like Florida lawmakers are following a similar route as far as young children are concerned.

AI services like ChatGPT are seen as convenient shortcuts for students who outright use the program(s) to write entire essays and fill out homework assignments at a moments notice. Not only are these practices unhealthy for student development, in some cases they can prove damaging for students who rely on those softwares in college.

The legislation for academic discipline being prepared in Ireland is another example of how researchers and college students at the highest levels must be held accountable for their dependence on artificial intelligence. These advancements in AI technology are now “regarded by academics as a much greater threat because they are typically free and easy to access” but does accessibility necessarily mean convenience when the consequences are so high?

The rise of pornography consumption brought by the social media era

Another facet of danger towards children is increased introductions to pornographic material — and it’s happening at an earlier age than other generations. The American College of Pediatricians published a study in 2016 on The Impact of Pornography on Children that lists a host of risks associated with ‘ubiquitous’ consumption of pornography that affects how young kids start to perceive relationships between men and women.

The study states that ‘Children under twelve years old who have viewed pornography are statistically more likely to sexually assault their peers’ and that alone should give parents pause when considering how freely they want to let their children access the internet. Not only could they be exposed to negative material but predators will often try to use pornographic material as a means to victimize and exploit children for their own grooming purposes.

As kids get older, their discernment for what is productive and meaningful media to digest increases slightly. However, parental advisement on the matter of safety and awareness on the internet is just as crucial towards kids knowing the difference between what is right and wrong, online or offline. The ubiquitous nature of these social media sites are inescapable even for most adults.

That’s why it’s imperative to bring the future generations up correctly when it comes to navigating the troubled waters of social media consumption. While there are no current statistics of how these new laws have benefitted children in these states (FL, TX, UT), we have a moral obligation to curb the tide of illiteracy brought by the COVID years. Among the ten most illiterate states in the nation, Florida ranks 9th with a 76.3% literacy rate.

This stat comes at an interesting crossroads for Florida’s classrooms as books are banned at an extraordinarily high rate within the state. Some parents even classifying certain books with LGBTQ topics and sex education books as “pornography” which has become a controversial viewpoint amongst lawmakers. That and the increased clamp down of books propagating ‘critical race theory’ have made Florida a hot bed state for these kinds of omissions on their curriculum.

Because of vague language within these laws, librarians and educators alike have to operate on the side of fear when it comes to including new material. No one wants to lose their teaching license over teaching a book with material that may be unwanted by parents. Thus, laws like the Parental Rights in Education bill have to be looked at with scrutiny because their vague language can cause unwanted strife and conflict amongst school boards in every county.

Are Florida lawmakers operating in good faith with these laws? More than likely. But the precision to which these laws apply towards schools overall must be updated in order to ensure not only that kids are safe and productive, but also make sure that their education isn’t being disrupted by nefarious practices that disrupt learning for the sake of a political agenda.

Nicolas Vera is a Florida National News reporter. | politics@floridanationalnews.com