MINN. (Valley News Live) – Starting next July, Minnesotans’ social media apps will look a bit different.
Next summer, social media apps in Minnesota will have a new “mental health warning label” when you open the app. What those labels will say isn’t exactly clear yet, but they will help point towards mental health resources.
“They might just click ‘ignore.’ All of those things, whether you put up billboards about it, not smoking, not vaping, or wherever you put those messages, at some point, it has to reach a critical mass. I think, where people start to pay attention,” said Sen. Rob Kupec (DFL – District 4).
The bill calls these warnings “conspicuous mental health” warning labels. Sen. Kupec says he’s all for it.
“Maybe it was something we needed a while ago. I think just more research has come out, and I think it’s something like putting a label on cigarettes. We knew cigarettes were bad for a long time. It took a long time to get labels on them. Sometimes the government doesn’t move as fast as it needs to.”
Those labels will become mandatory and will appear anytime you log on. According to a Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2023, 77% of high school students said they used social media several times a day.
Psychologist Katelyn Mickelson with Sanford Health says social media isn’t necessarily bad.
“I think that there are a lot of contributing factors to why we’re seeing increased rates of anxiety and depression in children and teens today. I think social media is a big factor related to this, but I also think that we’re looking at other factors such as the impact of early puberty on mental health, bullying, and other things, that may also be contributing to these increased rates of mental health.”
It’s what you do with it and how long you use it for—like intentionally using apps for 30 minutes a day, then setting the phone down. Mickelson actually doesn’t recommend cutting social media out altogether.
“That intentional use of connecting with people showed not having as much of an impact on our mental health versus the doom scrolling, and the anxiety scrolling that people tend to do when they’re like waiting in the waiting room and they’re anxious.”
Using with a purpose to give your mind some ease.
“I think monitoring your own social media use as a parent and modeling how to use the apps is really helpful.”
Valley News Live reached out to our local Republican lawmakers for comment as well.
Senator Jordan Rasmusson politely declined on this specific topic, as he says he did not actively work on this bill.
Other Republicans did not immediately respond to our request.
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