Children and Media

Rep Becca Balint (VT-AL) today introduced the Addictive Design Act, legislation to protect young people from the mental health risks posed by AI chatbots designed to foster emotional attachment, compulsive use, and ultimately, addiction. As AI chatbots become increasingly common in the lives of young people, a growing number of teenagers are turning to them for mental health support—even though most chatbots are not designed to respond safely to a youth experiencing a mental health crisis.

Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks, M.D. (R-IA) has introduced the Conversational AI Services Act, federal legislation to protect children and teenagers from the unique psychological risks posed by generative AI chatbots. The bill is modeled directly after Iowa's SF 2417, signed into law earlier this year by Governor Kim Reynolds with unanimous, bipartisan support. The Conversational AI Services Act will:

Reps Valerie Foushee (D-NC) and Greg Casar (D-TX) introduced H.R. 9619, the People-First Chatbot Act, comprehensive legislation to establish strong federal safeguards and protections for Americans interacting with artificial intelligence chatbots. The People-First Chatbot Act would:

• Prohibit companies from using minors’ chat logs or personal data to train AI chatbots. For adult users, companies may not use chat logs or personal data for training without affirmative consent.

The E-Rate program, which helps connect schools and libraries to the internet at discounted rates, is under review by the Federal Communications Commission. Educators and advocates are bracing for the funding to shrink or be eliminated. The agency's recent focus on the program has left educators including David Thurston on edge. Thurston oversees technology for the 33 school districts nested inside California's San Bernardino County.

While there is robust literature on the negative impact of adolescent device use on physical and psychological health, there is less research on the use of technology in the presence of others and its implications for key relationships. Known as “technoference” and “phubbing,” these device-based behaviors have only recently been examined in parent-child contexts. The present study investigated adolescents' perceptions of their primary caregivers' device-centric behaviors, the emotional appraisal of that behavior, and their association with the caregiver–adolescent attachment relationship.

The Supreme Court allowed a Texas law prohibiting minors from downloading apps without their parent's consent to go into effect. Multiple organizations had sued the state, arguing that the law violates children's freedom of speech. But in an unsigned, unexplained order, the high court allowed Texas to enforce the law as lawsuits continue in lower courts.

The Federal Communications Commission's move to potentially gut or end E-Rate is just the latest under Chairman Brendan Carr to place limits on the program.

Nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults support banning anyone under the age of 16 from using social media sites, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The survey comes as governments around the world weigh new restrictions on teens’ use of social media. About one-in-five adults oppose banning those under 16 from using social media. And roughly a quarter are unsure, according to the survey conducted May 26-June 1, 2026.

Republican state lawmakers could award $5 million in no-bid contracts to use AI for the purpose of providing tutoring support to students. The newly released state budget includes $2.5 million for middle schools and high schools to use Khan Academy’s Khanmigo program and $2.5 million to use MagicSchool’s program. Both programs are billed as ways to use artificial intelligence to help teachers with their lesson plans and students with learning comprehension.

Is social media safe enough for children? Today, parents must primarily rely on claims that social media companies make about their products to answer that question. But how accurate are these claims? To answer that question, we undertook a methodical independent analysis of features claimed to be provided by: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. We found that most features do not live up to the promises that companies make about the safety they provide. Of the 86 features that we tested, 51 failed, or ~60%.