On March 23, 2023 Utah governor Spencer Cox signed two new laws that ban the use of social media apps for people under the age of 18. The law enforces that minors need parent permission to use these apps and services. The state of Iowa is now considering imposing this law. The committee voted 14-9 sending it to the full House for consideration. Other states like Arkansas or Missouri are considering this law, but is this going to benefit or hurt minors? There are pros and cons on both sides of the argument.
To start with, there are some pros. The most important is protection of minors. Rep. John Will stated: “What we want to do is make sure that children are being protected from online bullying and from all of the other associated problems that go along with social media platforms.” Technologies can cause social problems and decrease productivity levels.
There are some cons too. Social media help teenagers get informed about recent news and many teenagers use it as a way to communicate with their friends and family. Some experts say that it will be easy for people to fake their parents' consent or their age and it will not be effective.
In my opinion Iowa shouldn’t ban social media for minors. It is the parents responsibility to decide whether they give their kid access to these apps or not and make sure they use it in a good way. I believe that banning them will lead to kids faking their parents' permission and their age and will not turn out to be as effective as they want to.
Do you think Iowa should impose this law? Why?
Do you think the law would turn out to be effective?
Sources:
https://secureteen.com/social-media/pros-and-cons-of-social-media
Replies
I agree with you. Social media makes it easier to communicate with people and stay updated about news.
I don't think Iowa should ban social media because it will make a lot of people mad. I personally love watching social media and so do many other people, even parents. This law wouldn't do much because people will probably make more apps to use.
I completely agree with you. I think that parents should be the ones considering if their kids have access to social media or not.
I do not think that this would be a good idea at all. I believe that people would stop moving here, which would be terrible for Iowa. I also believe that this law would be communistic. In North Korea, they are not allowed to have social media. I do not want to be like North Korea.
I feel this law passed would make many kids angry throughout Iowa. Social media has been available for kids forever so why change it now?
I agree that there would be a lot of protests and people mad about it.
I have not heard anything yet on this news or Iowa talking about social media at all, but if this is true it would not be fair to all Iowans, reasoning is that some people do not particpate in the basd things on social media or do not doing anything bad enough to make it a law.
I don't think Iowa should pass this law. It should be the parents' control of what their children are doing online. A lot of kids use social media to contact family/distant relatives that they don't get to see much, it also helps the family see how the child is doing in life. I don't think the law will be effective at all because people are just going to find another way around it as they do for everything else.
I agree that this law shouldn't be passed and parents should be the ones deciding.
I don't think that this law should be passed. At this point, the government is just taking away a lot of rights that we have. I understand why they think that social media is harmful, but that is the parent/guardians job. They need to stop taking away their job. The government shouldn't parent us, our guardians should.
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