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Virginia’s new social media restrictions may be intended to curb addiction among young people, but the state’s one-hour limit threatens minors’ constitutional rights without addressing the underlying problem.
Under the policy, children younger than 16 may not spend more than an hour per day on each service, including platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Parents can override that limit by providing “verifiable consent.”
The state should abandon this blanket restriction and leave decisions about children’s social media use to their parents.
NetChoice, an internet advocacy group whose members include Google and Meta, has sought an injunction against Virginia’s law. The organization argues that the restrictions violate minors’ First Amendment rights, including their ability to receive and express ideas online.
Those concerns deserve serious attention. The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that minors possess First Amendment rights, and the government generally cannot restrict access to speech merely because the audience is young.
Social media is also a major source of information for teenagers. In Deloitte’s 2025 Digital Media Trends survey, 51% of Gen Z teens said they get news from social media feeds. Limiting access could reduce young people’s exposure to reporting and public debate that help them understand current events and prepare for civic participation.
Restrictions affecting fundamental rights must typically withstand strict scrutiny, requiring the government to show that a measure is essential to advancing a compelling interest. Virginia has pointed to social media addiction, while platforms have also been associated with cyberbullying and anxiety. Those are legitimate concerns, but individual harms do not automatically justify a broad limit covering every minor.
“While the government may take many steps to protect minors from harm, restricting all minors from accessing mediums of expression based on concerns that some minors may find social media too ‘addicting’ is not an available option,” NetChoice said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Virginia.
The law could create privacy risks as well. Virginia has placed responsibility for verifying users’ ages on social media companies. That may require repeated identity checks and the collection of more personal information, potentially creating databases vulnerable to breaches and identity theft.
There is also little reason to assume the limit will solve compulsive social media use. Teenagers determined to evade it may turn to virtual private networks or less-regulated foreign platforms. That could push young users toward services with fewer safeguards, undermining the law’s protective purpose.
Although parents can extend the one-hour allowance, the override does not change the policy’s central problem: The government, rather than families, sets the default rule.
Parents already have access to controls such as Apple Screen Time and Google Family Link, which can help them monitor and manage their children’s device use. Those tools will not eliminate social media addiction, but they allow families to set limits based on a child’s circumstances.
Virginia should restore full parental discretion instead of imposing a statewide restriction that burdens speech, raises privacy concerns and may prove easy to evade.