Having no children and being older so have no responsibility for a young person, I cannot say how social media is affecting our youth.

I can only say, get off of my lawn!

Having said that, states around the country are attempting to enact laws to restrict young people from accessing social media on the internet.

"The Florida House of Representatives approved on Wednesday (Jan. 24, 2024) a bill aimed at barring children aged 16 and younger from social media platforms"... "the measure would require social media platforms to terminate the accounts of anyone under 17 years old and use a third-party verification system to screen out the underaged."
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"The bill would also require firms to permanently delete personal information collected from the terminated accounts and let parents bring civil suits against those failing to do so."
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"Utah became the first U.S. state to adopt laws regulating children's access to social media in March 2023, followed by others, such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas, according to a legislative analysis prepared for the Florida bill."

Also on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, New York City Mayor Eric Adams "said, New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan “is issuing a health commissioner advisory officially designating social media as a public health crisis hazard in New York City.” ... They "offered guidance to young people on encouraging healthy social media use, such as by implementing tech-free times and places; monitoring emotions during use; and sharing concerns related to social media and mental health with adults."
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"In May last year [2023], Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued an advisory that said there isn’t enough evidence to determine whether social media is “sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.” In an op-ed for The Post, Murthy wrote: “In light of the ongoing youth mental health crisis, it is no longer possible to ignore social media’s potential contribution to the pain that millions of children and families are experiencing.”

Apparently proponents of social media restrictions for youth believe social media contributes to depression, anxiety, and other negative mental health issues.

Opponents say that parents should control what their children she see and do on the internet.

I cannot imagine how Florida legislatures expect "social media platforms to terminate the accounts of anyone under 17 years old and use a third-party verification system to screen out the underaged." What kind of information will these companies be gathering from users to determine age? What will they be doing with that information? Oh, "The bill would also require firms to permanently delete personal information collected from the terminated accounts and let parents bring civil suits against those failing to do so." Alrighty then.

It's pretty easy to see how many adults handle social media, not well. If many adults have trouble with social media, how can we expect young people to handle it? How do social media users determine news and reality versus discussion and lies? Maybe they can. Times are different than years ago when my parents controlled how much TV we were allowed to watch and what music and books we were able to listen to and read. It didn't bother me so much. However, we were pushed to go outside and do things. Take it outside! That's what I heard. Of course, though, I respected my parents.

I recently received an email from Microsoft with links to the Microsoft Family Safety Preferences feature. This feature lets you provide limits on screen time and content, but appears to be limited. It's something.