Hochul Discusses Social Media and Student Cell Phones at NYSUT Conference

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — The 600,000-member NYSUT, which stands for New York State United Teachers, held a conference Sept. 20 to discuss cell phones, social media and education. The Disconnected conference in Albany included teachers, parents, administrators, students and advocates concerned about the impact of such technology on student well-being.

NYSUT said the poll found that nearly 80% of members believe that cell phones and social media have a negative impact on students, and therefore strongly support stricter rules on device use during school hours. The conference will feature expert panels on excessive social media use, model cell phone policies and strategies to promote healthy tech habits.

Speakers Friday morning included New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Assemblymember Shelley Mayer. Hochul kicked off the event just after 9 a.m. by talking about the challenge of supporting children’s mental health in the wake of the pandemic, with many students still struggling to keep up socially and academically. Such struggles exacerbate an ongoing mental health crisis, Hochul said, with the tech industry perpetuating social media platforms that harm children.

Hochul said statewide investments in school clinics and suicide prevention have failed to address social media platforms that use addictive algorithms and scammers. She highlighted New York legislation aimed at freeing them from constant distractions so they can connect with others, learn and grow.

“Our job is to raise adults, fully functioning adults who come out of childhood with the social skills they develop in school,” Hochul said, highlighting the “first in the country” local legislation designed to protect children online. “They’re being denied that now because the cell phone has taken over human interaction.”

After Hochul, Rep. Mayer drew a direct line connecting New York’s legislation to social media platforms’ new policies. “This week, Meta took some steps. I think they see what’s coming. They see what’s coming. There’s federal legislation coming that’s going to limit what these social media companies can do with our children under 18,” predicted Rep. Mayer, a Democrat who represents Westchester County. “Our children come first, and we’re not going to subordinate them to the profitable interests of these corporations.”

She’s referring to Tuesday, September 17, when parent company Meta launched specialized Instagram accounts for teens. New automatic safety limits affect who can contact them and what they see. There are stricter privacy controls, message limits, blocking of sensitive content and daily reminders for time management. Users under 16 will need their parents to relax restrictions, and parents will have more oversight, such as seeing who their child has messaged or blocking the platform altogether during certain hours.

The changes will be rolled out gradually, starting in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and expanding globally next year. Reached for comment on Friday, a Meta spokesperson told Nexstar: “We expect to move all teens in the US under 18 (13-17) to teen accounts over the next 60 days. We’ve done this in response to feedback we’re hearing from parents.”

Following the announcement of the teen Instagram account on Tuesday, Hochul issued a joint statement with New York Attorney General Letitia James. They attributed Instagram’s changes to New York’s landmark SAFE for Kids Act, which regulates feeds and limits late-night notifications for minors, restrictions that Instagram is implementing nationwide. They highlighted the ongoing issue of privacy and identity theft, which would at a minimum be addressed by the federal Child Data Protection Act.

Senator Andrew Gounardes also responded to Instagram’s announcement, saying the new safety features still fall short. He said platforms need to do more to minimize addictive content and stop collecting data. He warned that if the social media industry doesn’t step up, the government will step in.

“Social media companies must also make much better use of the existing tools at their disposal to verify the age of teenage users, to ensure that new safeguards actually work,” Senator Gounardes said.

On September 4, the journal “Eating and Weight Disorders” published a study that adds another hurdle for kids to overcome in the digital age. It found that spending too much time online increases the risk of eating disorders in children and teens. Research showed that more screen time, particularly on social media, increases the risk of eating disorder symptoms such as anxiety about weight gain, low self-esteem related to appearance, and unhealthy eating behaviors such as binge eating.

“Two point six million school children are counting on you,” Kyle Belokopitsky, executive director of the New York Parent Teacher Association, told the conference attendees on Friday. “And 60 percent of them are food insecure to some degree, and 200,000 of them are homeless, and 22, 23 percent of them have disabilities. They’re counting on us.”

Watch Hochul’s speech at the Disconnected conference below: