1. United States
2. N.Y.
3. Letter

Please oppose any blanket ban on minors' social media access. The science driving these bills is not settled — it's contested. Independent researchers at UC Irvine and Brown University have found the evidence linking social media to teen mental health decline to be mixed and contradictory. Large-scale meta-analyses across dozens of countries show no consistent association between social media rollout and declining well-being. One study of 100,000 adolescents actually found moderate social media use correlated with the best well-being outcomes. Legislators are treating correlation as causation, and that's a dangerous foundation for sweeping policy. These bans also carry serious collateral damage. For LGBTQ+ youth, rural teens, and kids in foster care, social media is often their only supportive community. Enforcement requires invasive biometric data collection from every user, and bans push young people toward unmoderated corners of the internet with far higher exploitation risks. California's A.B. 2071 shows a smarter path: digital wellness education that teaches students to manage algorithms and recognize manipulation. Fund that instead. Legislate with precision, not panic.