BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – State and national legislators have taken steps to amp up protections for children using social media. A local child advocacy expert says these new protections will help your child in the long run.
Experts say parents will play a huge part in tackling an increase in anxiety and predators that kids encounter online.
On September 1, the Securing Children Online Through Parent Empowerment Act took effect in Texas which expands parents’ access to monitor their children’s social media accounts and limit harmful material. This came just before a bipartisan group of Attorney Generals from 42 states wrote a letter demanding Congress implement a Surgeon General warning on social media apps.
Jessica Cervantes, a Bryan grandmother, told KBTX she’s glad her grandkids are too young for phones and social media right now. But when it’s time, she is confident they will navigate that online world with oversight.
“It’s scary, and I know that my daughter is going to do an amazing job with her kids, and we can just hope everything doesn’t get too crazy in the future,” Cervantes said.
Alison Pourteau, the Clinical Services Director at Scotty’s House, explained how overseeing your child’s online actions is vital to protect kids online.
“Obviously, a lot of what we see here is kind of the online predatory behavior that, again, every parent needs to be able to talk with their teen about. But it is also just the more mundane day-to-day. Kids already struggle with feeling accepted and feeling good about who they are and how they look, and we are really seeing a significant impact of social media on those things,” Pourteau detailed. “Ideally, parents are setting rules and boundaries from the time that kids get a phone or have cell phone use, that they are involved in what apps children are allowed to have and at what ages.”
The new laws and oversight are a good thing, according to Porteau. She said Scotty’s House sees more and more kids negatively impacted by social media expectations, bullying, and predators.
“This is probably the first generation that we’re seeing social media to such a heavy extent from a very early age, and I think it’s not unsurprising that it’s correlating with a lot of higher levels of anxiety and depression in kids,” added Porteau. “It’s kind of double danger for these teenagers that there are already very susceptible to feeling bad about themselves, wanting somebody to accept them, and, you know, make them feel good, and then there are tons of perpetrators.”
Scotty’s House is working on a campaign to encourage kids to replace social media time with something else or delete at least one social media app.
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