Minnesota residents will soon be unable to log onto their favorite social media sites without first seeing a “mental health warning label.” The label will remain on their screen until the individual “acknowledges the potential for harm and chooses to proceed to the social media platform despite the risk.” Similar legislation was recently passed in New York which mandates that any site using popular features such as like buttons, infinite scrolling, or an autoplay feature will include a warning label created by New York’s “Commissioner of Mental Hygiene." Other states are likely to follow Minnesota and New York’s lead. Eventually, there will be a push for Congress to create a national mental health warning for social media sites—unless (as is quite likely) these warning labels are invalidated by the federal courts.
Earlier this year, in the case of Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. (2025), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Texas law requiring a warning label on “adult” web sites. The court was following the Supreme Court precedent that the government can only compel speech if the speech is “purely factual and uncontroversial information.” Claims that social media use endangers mental health are neither uncontroversial nor entirely factual. Statistician Aaron Brown analyzed the studies used by psychologist and New York University professor Jonathan Haidt to support his call for government action to protect young people’s mental health by regulating their social media use.
Brown found that some of the studies have “egregious errors.” One study he cites, “clearly screwed up its data coding,” while another study “drew all its relevant data from study subjects who checked ‘zero’ for everything relevant in a survey.” Furthermore, the studies only explain one to two percent of the cases of childhood depression.
Advocates of warning labels also ignore the benefits of social media use. Social media enables people to form, maintain, and renew friendships with individuals around the country, and even around the world. It also provides a way for individuals to share and receive information about almost any subject that interests them. Even if they acknowledge the benefits of social media, advocates of warning labels and other regulations of social media claim the benefits do not mitigate the damage done by individuals forgoing “face to face” interactions in favor of spending time online.
However, a report from the University of Florida found that children with smartphones are more likely to spend “face to face” time with their peers than children without smartphones. The study also found that children with smartphones are less likely to have self-image problems or struggle with depression. Studies of how excessive social media use contributed to childhood depression in the early part of this decade ignore the elephant in the room when it comes to young people’s mental health: the social isolation resulting from the COVID lockdowns.
Social media may have provided a lifeline for children and adolescents during the lockdowns by providing them with a means to maintain contact with their friends. The Florida University study did find that teenagers who regularly post on social media tend to suffer from depression and sleep deprivation. These issues can and should be resolved by parents limiting their child’s posting and making strict rules about when phones and other devices must be shut off at night. Parents should also monitor their child’s social media use to make sure the child is getting the benefits of social media while avoiding online dangers such as predators, cyber bullies, and trolls.
Fortunately, a wide variety of tools exist to help parents protect their children from inappropriate content. Adults do not need warning labels or other government “guidance.” In a free society, adults have the right to make wrong choices—like spending too much time on social media. But it is the job of parents, not the government, to protect their children from the pitfalls of excessive use of social media. The upside of social media warning labels is that they may give young people a healthy skepticism about claims that the nanny state must restrict their liberty for their own good. This will make them less likely to support nanny state politicians and policies when they become voters.
