What the STUDY Act means for schools:
As more and more schools adopt policies to restrict cell phone use in class, the STUDY Act seeks to create phone-free schools in Massachusetts by directing all public schools to establish formal policies on the use of cell phones and personal electronic devices during the school day. The bill also would require social media companies to implement guardrails for kids’ use to protect their mental health.
- The policy must limit physical access to a personal electronic device by students during the school day.
- Exemptions permitting use allowable as needed to accommodate a student’s need as indicated by their IEP or health plan and in emergencies.
- Schools would be required to educate students on the social, emotional, and physical risks of social media use.
How the STUDY Act holds social media companies accountable:
Recognizing that social media companies have an immense responsibility to keep users safe, the bill calls on the companies to implement procedures including but not limited to:
- Age assurance or verification system to determine whether a user meets age requirements under law and keep any information about a minor user’s age confidential from third-party use.
- Default settings for a minor user to ensure privacy and limit prolonged engagement by disabling features like notifications between certain hours, autoplay, and continuous scrolling.
- Features for a minor user to flag unwanted or harmful content and regular surveys for the minor user to indicate to the company that they don’t want this type of content on their feed.
- Regular warnings from social media platforms to the minor user on the negative effects of social media use on social, emotional and physical health.
- More than half of public school leaders (53 percent) feel that their students’ academic performance has been negatively impacted by cell phone usage. More than two-thirds feel cell phones have had a negative impact on their students’ mental health (72 percent) and attention span (73 percent)
The STUDY Act was drafted with input from the AGO’s Youth Council and marks the latest step in AG Campbell’s work to protect young people from the negative impacts of social media, including lawsuits against Meta, and its subsidiary Instagram, as well as TikTok, for designing its platforms to addict young users and deceiving the public about efforts to keep its platform safe.