On March 6-7, 2023, the Reboot Foundation surveyed 1,049 U.S. adults and found strong support for new regulations on how social media platforms interact with minors and children. Survey respondents were demographically representative of the Census, and the survey itself has a margin of error of 3 percent.

62 percent want children off social media

Any child can bypass a platform’s age restriction by simply lying about their age. These ineffective restrictions put children at risk of mental health issues, cyber-bullying, identity theft, and expose them to child predators, to name a few very real and serious dangers. A growing body of research is demonstrating connections between social media use and mental health issues among young people, particularly girls. In Congress, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) have proposed legislation that would raise the legal age for social media use in the U.S. to 16, and would require social networks to verify the identity and age of their users.