States push for social media warnings amid MH concerns

California became the latest state to require social media companies to add warning labels to tell their users about its risks to mental health amid a national debate on how to confront its effects on the country's youth and society, ABC News reported Oct. 14. Lawmakers in both parties have taken issue with the impact social media is having on the nation's youth and have pushed the companies to do more to prevent it, concerns that have been ramped up with the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence. Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law last week mandating warning labels for social media, joining a handful of other states that have enacted or are considering similar measures warning underage users about the negative effects of spending too much time online. The warning labels have broad support in both parties, with nearly all U.S. attorneys general endorsing Congress requiring them last year. California's bill will require social media platforms to show users under age 18 warnings that social media “can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well‐being of children and adolescents.” They will be required to display a skippable warning for 10 seconds, which covers at least 25% of the screen of the site, when a child opens the app for the first time each day, along with a 30‐second unskippable warning if they spend more than three hours on the site. Another 30‐second warning will repeat after every additional hour of use.