[Music] well Florida Governor Ronda Sanchez signed a new bill earlier this week it has people talking about how we should regulate social media for our kids and can we right it's a very strict Bill making National headlines essentially when you boil it to the bones it would ban social media accounts for children 14 and under and it would also require parental permission for 14 and 15 year olds let's set this up now opponents of the bill say they understand the safety concerns of social media on
minors but they argue the government should not interfere with the decisions that parents make with their children supporters though want this bill to pass because it would ban formats based on features like notification alerts and autoplay of videos instead of their content the way this bill is structured uh it is not engaging in any regulation of speech um it is basically identifying functionality you know that is causing harms The Addictive features so the live said to take effect January 1 o
f 2025 but we asked you on a poll what is an appropriate age to allow your child on social media and you see right there the Lion Share of you are sounding off 16 and older that is the answer right there trailed by 14 to 15 but a lot of parents and people who love kiddos weighing in on this one interestingly and we found this out earlier that the majority of the states that are starting to crap this legislation and see it past like we saw in Florida are conservative States and what's interesting
to me these are also states that are beating the drum saying conservative voices have been limited on social media so interesting where they inject the influence where the legislative process is concerned and where they don't and I'll be honest with you I didn't realize that there were more States on board already implementing these type of things so it really does kind of make you think about and I also want to know if it's working and how they're regulating all of that how are you going to co
ntrol you know who signs that paperwork from the kids quote unquote parents and how are I mean and are they being fined I think there's there's so much more to making it work than just Sig it into existence and you know people have a right to sort of parent their kids how they see fit I think that's our right as parents but I also see a bit of the advantage too Reed because sometimes social media scares me when our kids get on and what they get exposed to well you know when any bill is passed ob
viously it goes through committee and it goes through all of the various bodies so that everybody gets to sound off and everybody gets a vote and often time experts weigh in on this so what's fascinating to me you you've got to have seen at least in committee experts weighing in on how do we monitor this and that really gets to the question of should government be monitoring any of our social media accounts you know we're talking about kids here it sounds really nice but do you want the governor
the government to have any power to look at and build in metrics to where they can follow and track what you're doing and I mean and think about this we're going to a very very uh big political year with the presidential election and how that weighs into what's being monitored and what we're getting in information so we took to the streets to ask what you think is a mature enough age for children to sign up for socials here's what you had to say I feel like maybe not until you're like 14 I thin
k there's a lot of stuff going on I guess that can really influence them that they don't really know especially when their parents aren't around try to hold off as long as possible hearing all these stats about the depression levels raising self-esteem and um just missing out on more social interactions I think I think it's a really big deal one of them doesn't have one he's opted out 15 okay um told me to give him $1,000 on graduation if he never installed it's a good good motivation College bo
nus and the other I think 15 so many interesting talking points on this one you know I'm thinking about what's going on with Tik Tok and lawmakers wanting to ban Tik Tok one of the arguments they make is that it could be an undue influence by the Chinese into the minds of our kiddos so fascinating again to see where they are interjecting their influence we're also seeing you take to x with some differing opinions back in the old days we called it Twitter Belle says I'm so happy with the social m
edia ban for kids 13 and younger in Florida uh she says I hope they make it more strict for the entire country the internet is not a safe place for young minds yeah and here's another quote unquote tweet SLX so this is from Mera singer where she says so it bans children under 14 most social media sites are already set at 13 a person can still put any year they want this was kind of my point I failed to see the point of this and and you know to that point kids can find their own way and they will
and they do so who's going to regulate it who's going to watch it right Mark is definitely not on board though with the ban he said Florida's social media ban for minors goes too far and is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech and parents rights it's interesting uh Ronda sanis the governor of Florida built in those opening remarks that we showed right off the top of this this is not to limit speech so obviously when we talk about this going through committee and all of the analysis th
at happens as a bill is formed and passed they had to have had people who said whoa whoa wait a minute Free Speech well and and and you think about what are the benefits of them being on there I know there's a lot of things we have to worry about but there are they get information they get you know hear other people's opinions see other people from around the world I think there are the positives but I feel like there's so much negative too it's really a great conversation to have you know earli
er we spoke with a child life specialist Kristen Beckler at UCSF Ben off children's hospital and most importantly she's also a mom dealing with this with teenage daughters she tells us that teaching our children how to navigate social media really is key but it's also about really building that connection with your child my husband and I are um very on top of making sure that our children have good digital safety that they you know had boundaries before they even got on social media um but again
we want to respect their privacy and have um allow them to have some Independence in their um experience on social media um so we do have to have that trust but we built that trust over time I mean it parenting is hard can we I mean let's just start there it's not easy I love every minute of it and you just want you're hoping you do the right thing but I know we all mess up sometimes and it's just about making good decisions as best as you can and then realizing okay maybe this wasn't the right
choice let's take a step back and rethink what we can do better think about those young years when our kids were babies in our home and it was just sort of there in our Nest to me parenting gets more difficult when other influences start coming into the home and how do you navigate that how do you align it with your family's values and and what you value and honor and want to protect in your own home that's where the whole thing happens and I said earlier look I look at social media sort of lik
e a room it's a digital room who would you allow to come in a room into your living room to influence your child to sell things to your child targeted ads a thing on social media and so that's why I think when I look at this I just think I'm glad somebody's talking about it not so sure how I feel about whether the legislation can be implemented or not or should be implemented but we're talking about it and that's where you start you got to you do the conversations and hopefully we can figure it
out as a whole and just we see you moms and dads we see you caretakers do the best that you can and raise some good kids out there
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