Gary Turco

We must put families — not tech profits — first.

I spoke at a forum this week called "Scrolled Out,: during which a panel of experts, including myself, discussed how social media companies are deliberately engineering their platforms to keep users hooked —driving massive profits while taking a serious toll on mental health, especially for children and teens. One developer famously described these addictive design features — such as infinite scrolling, constant notifications, and algorithm-driven feeds — as “behavioral cocaine.”

That’s why, in the state legislature, we’re focused on helping kids — and supporting parents — as they navigate social media in an increasingly digital world. Our responsibility is to make sure technology serves families, not the other way around.

As vice-chair of the General Law Committee, I help lead legislative efforts on social media and digital technology. Last session, I led House debate on a bipartisan bill designed to limit minors’ exposure to addictive social media algorithms. The bill passed the House with overwhelming support (121–26) but was unfortunately not taken up in the Senate.

What the legislation would do:

• Allow minors to continue using social media, but limit exposure to addictive algorithms and notifications unless parents give consent
• Establish safer default settings for children’s accounts, adjustable by parents
• Strengthen privacy protections to limit contact with unconnected adults
• Ban notifications between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.
• Set a one-hour daily usage limit for kids, adjustable by parents

This bill is about empowering parents and protecting kids. Parents would have the flexibility to decide what’s right for their family — stricter or less — while ensuring strong baseline protections for children.”

Importantly, the bill does not regulate content. Kids and adults would still have access to the same information and communities. The focus is solely on addictive design features. The legislation also includes safeguards to ensure adults are not mistakenly treated as minors, relying on existing age-verification technologies and defaulting to adult status when age cannot be verified.

This year, we’re committed to getting these protections over the finish line.

In addition to social media addiction, legislators including myself are increasingly concerned about the rise of harmful interactions between children and AI-powered chatbots. Some chatbots developed by major tech companies have been reported to encourage violent or sexually explicit conversations with minors. Recently, Character.AI and Google announced settlements in lawsuits involving youth mental health crises and suicides linked to chatbot interactions. In one tragic case, an AI chatbot reportedly became a teen’s “suicide coach,” even offering to help write a suicide note.

This is deeply troubling, and it demands action. We are actively exploring new measures to protect kids from dangerous AI interactions and to hold companies accountable when their products put young people at risk.

Our kids’ mental health is too important to ignore. I will continue fighting for commonsense, bipartisan solutions that protect children, respect parents, and ensure technology works for the public good — not just corporate profit.

To watch the forum I participated in, please click on the link below.