COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Republicans have proposed a new bill that would require public schools to ban social media and prohibit students from using electronics during class. It is meant to help promote education and emotional wellbeing, the sponsor said.
State Rep. Tom Young (R-Washington Township) is a dad of three and seeing the effects of social media on his kids has been tough to watch.
"The pressure, the tears — I mean, it's just not worth it," Young said.
He worries about his 12-year-old's privacy, even while using parental controls.
"His social media contact is limited to a few set of friends and his family," he said — but noted that kids and teens aren't with their guardians 24 hours a day.
The lawmaker wants schools to start addressing phone use, like how Parma is doing.
Parma City School District prohibits cell phone use in all academic settings, but they allow it in common areas like hallways and cafeterias. Superintendent Charles Smialek added that his schools also have a health course about the negative impacts of social media.
"We are able to make standards and procedures that behoove all of our students educationally," Smialek said. "We've really gotten, largely, a positive response."
That's why the administrator is generally supportive of House Bill 485, which would require public schools to create an internet safety policy. The bill, sponsored by Young, also mandates grades 6-12 to have courses on the negative side of social media.
"If an individual has a mobile phone in their hand, or a computer in their hand, they can find a way around anything," Young said. "If the device isn't in their hand, then there's no access, right?"
The bill would also block social media sites on school Wi-Fi. Personal devices like cell phones, computers, headphones and smart watches would be banned unless a teacher specifically allows it, there is an emergency, it is needed for healthcare or if a student has a learning disability and it is part of their accommodations.
But Smialek has a few concerns — including local control.
"You want to be able to make your own decisions and you want your professionals to be able to interact with their students and with their colleagues because, quite frankly, they're the folks doing the work and they know best about the work," he said.
Democratic leaders are on the same page.
"I'm not sure that there is a one size fits all, for every district to every student, every setting," House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said.
At the same time, Smialek calls out the hypocrisy he sees at the Statehouse.
"It is befuddling that we are a state without health standards," he said. "We haven't had the intestinal fortitude to invest in that type of endeavor because of a lot of different competing political interests."
He said that now, this is the legislature "backdooring" their way into health standards but without using the "controversial" name.
"To be held to a large body of standards, really everything we teach, and then to have this glaring weakness of not having any health standards — this is really paradoxical for us," the administrator added.
Ohio is the only state in the country without health education standards. When abortion was banned in the state in 2022, education advocates warned there would be an increase in child and teen pregnancy due to the lack of sexual education.
Young is willing to compromise, adding that he supports local rule.
"If you have some sort of program, you don't have to re-invent the wheel," he said.
His bill is only meant to give requirements, but the schools can have flexibility within those regulations, he added.
The lawmaker believes there will be two other major complaints about his bill: no appropriation and business concerns.
This bill would be an unfunded mandate. The lawmakers have not prepared any amount of money to provide to schools in order to develop these policies and create these courses. Public education has been, and still is, significantly underfunded in the state, with courts continuing to rule that the funding system is unconstitutional. Plus, the advancement of the universal voucher system has been taking money out of the pockets of public K-12 and into private schools.
Young said that schools should be able to deal with the cost.
"I would hope that they would try something because there are ways to do it that should not cost a tremendous amount of money," Young argued back. "We don't do enough on the front end in our world to alleviate the immense cost... a detrimental effect to our society."
The course would have to include:
- The negative effects of social media on mental health, including addiction
- The distribution of misinformation on social media
- How social media manipulates behavior
- The permanency of sharing materials online
- How to maintain personal security and identify cyberbullying, predatory behavior, and human trafficking on the internet
- How to report suspicious behavior encountered on the internet.
We reached out to the leading social media companies in the country, but none responded to address the bill specifically.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said they had no comment but guided us toward their efforts over the past few years to create a safer environment for kids.
When talking with social media companies in the past, each has brought up the argument that social media is only one thing on a child's phone — there are also games, texting and other apps that can be distracting.
Earlier this year, NetChoice, which represents Meta, filed a lawsuit against the state, blocking the enforcement of a law that requires certain companies to get parental consent before allowing kids under the age of 16 to use their platforms. Whilst this lawsuit has been heard, and while other states are dealing with the same issue, Meta has made dozens of changes to how kids use their sites.
They use IDs as well as new AI tools to verify age, a representative for Meta told us last year. In the second half of 2021, they removed almost two million accounts that didn't meet their minimum age, they added.
Lawmakers also want to require age verification for pornography, causing chaos to erupt online when we reported about it.
Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill to require age verification to watch pornographic material. This double-teaming by Republicans and Democrats is causing immediate backlash from Ohioans on each side of the political aisle since it would require all porn watchers to provide personal information — even a state ID — to view sexually explicit material.
RELATED: PornSnub — Ohio lawmakers want to require ID to watch online pornography
However, the bill only mentions one specific social media app — TikTok.
The bill states that TikTok or any "successor platform is prohibited on district or school-owned devices, through internet access provided by the district or school, or as a platform to communicate or promote any school, school-sponsored club, extracurricular organization, or interscholastic athletic team."
"TikTok has parental controls for teen accounts, a 60-minute time limit for users under 18, restrictions on direct messaging, and other tools to support youth wellbeing. Indiscriminately restricting one platform limits schools' ability to reach a wider audience and market their programs." a TikTok spokesperson told me after the story was published.
RELATED: Local content creators, small business owners speak out amid potential TikTok ban
State and federal lawmakers have pounced on the TikTok ban bandwagon. The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a foreign aid package that included a ban on the popular app. If it goes through, the app will be banned, or Chinese parent company ByteDance will be forced to sell it, according to ABC News.
In 2023, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed an executive order to ban TikTok from any state-owned device, but some public officials are advocating for a complete ban.
RELATED: Ohio bans TikTok from state devices, some officials push for total ban
H.B. 485 will be heard in the upcoming months.
This bill would likely be backed by DeWine.
"When you talk to teachers in schools that have removed phones during the lunch period, they will tell you the change is miraculous! The lunchroom is noisy again! Instead of having their heads down, buried in their phones, kids are talking and interacting and laughing and enjoying themselves," the governor said during his State of the State speech earlier this month. "A number of Ohio schools have made the decision to eliminate smartphone use during the school day — and it’s the right decision. These phones are detrimental to learning. They are detrimental to our kids’ mental health and they need to be removed from the classroom."
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