US lawmaker says China is ‘more thoughtful’ about protecting children from social media

Unregulated social media is the root cause of why young Americans feel unhappy, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said at Semafor and Gallup’s State of Happiness forum on Wednesday.

Social media, when “unregulated and unchecked, can drive Americans mad,” Murphy told Semafor’s Steve Clemons.

The Connecticut senator said that “China is much more thoughtful and protective of its young people” when it comes to social media, by regulating what content they can access and the amount of time they are allowed to spend on the platforms.

Happiness levels among 15-24-year olds in the U.S. have fallen steeply since the mid-2000s, and the U.S. ranked 62nd among 143 countries for people under the age of 30, according to Gallup’s World Happiness Report 2024.

A large part of that unhappiness stems from ”the sense of powerlessness that people, particularly youth, have,” Murphy said. ”They are playing by the rules... but feel success is further and further away.”

Social media regulation has become one of Capitol Hill’s hot-button issues this year: the Senate Judiciary Committee in January grilled several Big Tech CEOs on their platforms’ commitment to online safety for children and teens, pushing them to publicly declare support for two key bills cracking down on sexual exploitation of children on social media.

The House more recently passed a TikTok divestment bill, which, if signed into law, would require the popular app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok or have it be banned from U.S. app stores. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

Murphy said he is “open” to the House TikTok bill, but would prefer legislation that more “broadly regulates social media and have that apply to everything from TikTok to Instagram to Facebook.”