Lawmakers in Florida are advancing legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. Studies have found that social media use causes chemical reactions in the brain that are similar to drug use, and addiction to social media has become a serious problem for the younger generation. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Lawmakers in Florida are advancing legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. Studies have found that social media, well, it causes a chemical reaction. It’s a dopamine reaction in the brain just like any other addictive process. Just like Oxycontin. Just like any of those. They know that. This isn’t guesswork anymore. You know, it used to be kind of a joke. Well, I wonder whether this is affecting their brain. Is this why they’re in front of their phone 12 hours a day? Well, no, it’s a little more complicated. It’s the same analysis that you would use for any addiction. And it’s, I love the term. It’s not my term. It was given to somebody, digital fentanyl. Digital fentanyl is what it’s called. One of the Florida legislators came out and said that we gotta do something about it.
Farron Cousins: It’s really interesting to me, because when I first saw this story, I thought, okay, this is kind of ridiculous. This is overstepping. There’s no way they’re gonna ban social media for people under 16. But when you actually read it, and you actually look at the science behind it, and you look at the studies that have been done, this might be the first time we’ve ever talked about legislation in Florida where we’re like, you know what? This is actually a smart idea. This is a good important thing here, because the studies are overwhelming. Even the US Surgeon General has come out and said, listen, these social media apps for these young people in this country are as addictive as drugs. It’s doing the same thing to the brains.
Mike Papantonio: What it does is it opens a whole new avenue. Okay. You have something called constitutional police power. That is where government has the right to say where health, safety and welfare is concerned, if we have enough evidence that something’s affected, it overcomes a lot of the obstacles, such as First Amendment obstacles. It can actually overcome that. And so here you’ve got, it’s an entire body of science. They’ve done PET scans, they’ve done all types of studies, and they see there’s a difference taking place in the brain that’s exactly like you see with dopamine, with Oxycontin. It’s a dopamine change. And so this isn’t guesswork. And so with this right, I think the police power, they’re gonna be able to make some inroads. New York is way ahead on it. Right now they’re pulling out all their guns. Utah ahead on it. And they’re trying to say, listen, why are we ignoring this? We don’t ignore it with drugs. Do we? We don’t ignore it with alcohol. We say, yeah, these are items that affect the addiction problem for children. So we’re not going to allow you to drink until you’re 18 years old. So that’s the same analysis here. I think this, I’m like you. You know, most of the stuff that comes outta Florida these days, the legislator, I mean, just a bunch of boneheads, man.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But you see something like this and you go, wow, maybe there’s hope.
Farron Cousins: It’s got bipartisan support, which is rare. And again, it’s addressing an issue that has kind of festered for far too long to where, as usual with these social media companies, we’re once again playing from behind. But we have a chance to make a real difference with this.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. New York is really jumping into this with both feet. And I think we’re behind Utah, but this could happen here. It absolutely could happen.
