Texas Banning Social Media For Kids Under 18

A new bill has made it's way through the house of representatives in Texas as lawmakers there are trying to limit the use of social media to people under 18. If it passes the senate then will this cause a wave of states to do the same? Wanna stay connected to the show and follow along with all of our stories? Follow us at the Dom with Melissa Facebook page here: Dom With Melissa Facebook Page 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Dumb in the Morning with Melissa Moore, the podcast on
Cool one oh five.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Was a story coming out of the Lone Star State.
The State House of Representatives down in Texas, Melissa passed
a bill that would ban the use of any social
media platforms by anyone under the age of eighteen, and
the vote wasn't even closed because it has like full
bipartisan support and it now goes down to the state Senate.
Proponents of the bill claimed that it is in response

(00:31):
to all of the rapidly escalating mental health issues that
kids face, issues that are often associated and I would
add exacerbated by social media.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
What do you think, Oh, I think it's I number one.
I think it sounds controversial, but I think so many
parents have dealt with social media bowling and have seen
the self esteem issues. I mean, when I looked at
the numbers and how many young women are dealing with
body image issues, social media pressure in other ways, I

(01:03):
was like, I actually get it. I didn't. I've told
you this off the air, but when my daughter was
in high school, I didn't let her have social media.
I was like, no, you cannot do Facebook, you cannot
do Instagram, because I saw and I kept seeing the
news stories every day of what it was doing to
young people, and I was so concerned for her. And

(01:23):
now she's twenty and she doesn't even want to do
it anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
So oh, that's great.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
It really She's like, I don't really need that, and
I'm like, thank God for that. Wow, because you just
look at some of the comments, and people are so
mean and kids are so mean to each other that
I was surprised in some ways that Texas is doing it,
and the fact that it was this bipartisan support. But
yet at the same time, as a parent, I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
There's another bill down there that would put a slap
a warning label on social media and they said, hey,
we've seen the you know, the benefits of warning labels,
and I'm thinking, really, warning labels like on cigarettes work.
I don't know, they say they do. My thing is
I'm not preaching a position here. I'm saying I don't know, right,
And my big question is how is this enforced? Because

(02:12):
they say that you know that there will be some
sort of you have to do a proof thing of
how old you are before you sign up.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I'm well, what they're saying because I thought the same
thing and what they were saying is that they will
require social media companies not to approve accounts for anyone
under eighteen in the state of Texas. So whether it's
signing up on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or whatever
you're doing when you go to or TikTok, wouldn't be

(02:40):
it because that's not ours. But when you go to
sign up, you have to put in your birth date
and the state you're in, and if you're under eighteen
in Texas, then what they just lie.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
That's what I'm saying. How do you enforce it right?
I mean, you got a fifteen year old who wants
an account. All they got to do is just fudge
on their birth date. That's why I'm curious how the
enforcement works.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
No, I've been wondering that too, And I know for me,
I couldn't wait for a company to do it for
my daughter. I had to do it as the parent.
I had to say this is not going to happen.
And we had a long talk about why, and I said,
you know, when you get a little bit older. And
when she turned sixteen, I asked her how she's feeling
about it. She's like, yeah, I still don't care, like great,
and then it just kind of stayed that way. But

(03:21):
we got her out of that age of that thirteen fourteen,
fifteen where she wanted to do it, and I just said,
I have really huge concerns, and I shared with her why,
and I also told her, I said, look, as your
mom and somebody who's on the radio, I've gotten a
lot of hate myself, and it's hard for me to
deal with as an adult, some of the awful comments
I've received over the years. I don't want to see

(03:42):
you go through that. And I think I tried to
share that vulnerability with her.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Hey, you know what, cheers to you for doing that.
And I love that. Now she's like twenty and she's like, Eh,
don't need it.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
And I don't know if I'm the only parent. I
don't know if there are other parents out there who've
made that same decision. I just knew it was right
for us.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I love it. It's almost as if if you get
them past the danger zone of like you're talking about,
like thirteen to sixteen, thirteen to eighteen, right, did they
even come to the realization that it's garbage?

Speaker 1 (04:09):
It is?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
It's funny, all right?

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Don in the Morning with Melissa Moore. The podcast on
Cool one oh five. Subscribe now so you never miss
an episode, and learn more about the show at cool
one oh five dot com.