Parental Attitudes and Predictors of Support for Youth-Directed Social Media Legislation in the United States

Abstract Across the United States, there has been an increase in policy initiatives aimed at regulating child and adolescent social media use. While an extensive body of work currently outlines the potential negative outcomes of early social media use, researchers have yet to examine the legislation itself, and more specifically, parents’ attitudes toward this legislation. We collected survey data from parents of 8-17-year-olds ( N = 1359) across the United States between August and September 2023. Utilizing an exploratory, cross-sectional study design, we aimed to describe overall awareness of the legislation, as well as predict support for nine major provisions which cut across over 20 states’ bills. Results from hierarchical linear regressions show that parents are somewhat to strongly supportive of most of the legislation, with moral foundation salience (defined as the importance an individual places on five primary foundations of morality including care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity) being the most consistent predictor of support. Importantly, parents’ political ideology was not found to be significantly related to support for many of the included provisions. These findings hold important both theoretical and practical implications. First, in identifying moral foundation salience as a consistent predictor of legislative support, we extend our understanding of Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and the extent to which moral sensibilities influence individuals’ attitudes and opinions. Further, identifying the lack of significance of political ideology offers an informative signal to policymakers of the bipartisan nature of support for social media legislation aimed at protecting minors.