A reckoning on social media addiction came late for many kids. Will AI
safety be different?
[October 05, 2026] By
KAITLYN HUAMANI and BARBARA ORTUTAY
Years after the risks of social media for kids first became apparent,
U.S. states this summer reached an accord hailed as a turning point for
child safety. Meanwhile, a new generation of children has begun engaging
with an even more potent technology: artificial intelligence.
While the efforts to make social media safer are still taking shape,
they offer some lessons for those looking to protect children using AI —
technology that is growing so quickly, the extent of its risks for young
people and their development is just emerging.
When Meta agreed to changes to its social media platforms and enhanced
safeguards in an $18 billion settlement, it made progress by “getting at
what we’ve known for years” about the dangers, said Kristin Bride, a
parent advocate who has fought for social media reform since the death
of her teenage son. “How are we going to get at what we don’t know is
coming?”
AI companies have begun rolling out some safety features introduced
first by social media companies, including age assurance measures and
restricted experiences for minors. But advocates say the most important
takeaway from the efforts of parents, tech companies and regulators to
find a way forward on social media safety may be to act sooner on
mitigating AI's harms for kids.
“The greatest legacy from the social media experiment and learnings is
that hopefully we’re not going to sleepwalk into this next tech
revolution,” said Dr. Dana Suskind, a professor of surgery and
pediatrics at the University of Chicago, and author of “Human Raised.”
“We learned that we had it all backwards, right? You don’t unleash
something on a population, figure out if it does harm or not in real
time, and then go back and say, ‘Oops.’”
AI and social media pose different risks, but some solutions overlap
Concerns around social media have centered on the amount of time kids
spend on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and the consequences for
their mental health. Advocates also have focused on data privacy and
kids' vulnerability to cyberbullying or predators who find them online.
Artificial intelligence can be more pervasive for kids. Children not
only see AI-generated content on social media platforms, but they can
also readily communicate with AI chatbots, including some on social
media apps. Many use it for help with school and homework. Some have
formed unhealthy relationships with chatbots, and experts have raised
questions about how access to AI is affecting children's brain
development. Companies are pushing AI-powered toys for kids as young as
2.
Campaigns for social media and AI safety for kids are both playing out
on legal and legislative fronts. Individuals and states have sued tech
companies over concerns around their products’ safety and both state and
federal lawmakers are grappling with how to regulate the tech.
Compared with social media companies, AI giants have been moving
somewhat more quickly to add safeguards, motivated perhaps by the
growing regulatory and societal scrutiny of social media’s effects on
kids’ mental health.
OpenAI introduced teen accounts in August, about four years after
launching ChatGPT, with restrictions that include a ban on romantic
chats and any suggestions that the chatbot has personal feelings toward
the user.
Meta, which bought Instagram in 2012, didn’t launch teen accounts on the
platform until 2024.
In announcing the settlement agreement this summer, Meta said that
“ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms
is an absolute imperative” for the company. Meta also urged its
competitors, TikTok and YouTube, to adopt some of the standards it is
implementing as a result of the settlement.
One challenge is balancing the benefits of AI with dangers
The protections outlined in the Meta settlement cannot easily be applied
to AI because of the differences in the way young people interact with
AI versus social media, experts said.
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ChatGPT history by a teenager is seen at a coffee shop in
Russellville, Ark., on July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins, File)
 One of the challenges of restricting
AI for minors is that it’s “much easier to point to the upsides” for
teens compared with social media, said Sarah Kreps, a professor and
director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute. While there
are concerns about cheating, for instance, kids are also using AI
for tutoring and legitimate homework help.
“It’s not a matter of just saying ‘let’s limit this to two hours’ or
'let’s limit this between the hours of 10 at night and 6 in the
morning’ because there are these salutary uses of AI that I think
are harder to justify in the context of social media,” Kreps said.
A majority of U.S. teens — 64% — say they have used AI chatbots,
according to the Pew Research Center. Looking up information and
getting help with schoolwork tops the list of uses, though 47% say
they’ve used chatbots for fun and 42% have used it to summarize an
article, book or video. About 12% have turned to bots for emotional
support or advice.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author of “The Anxious
Generation,” said he is most worried about the relationships and
attachments young people can build with chatbots and the “cognitive
offloading” that happens when people defer their thought processes
to a chatbot.
“I have long thought that AI is a much bigger threat to children
even than social media,” Haidt said. “But if we can’t win on social
media, then it will be hopeless on AI.”
Congress has just begun to look at AI safety for kids
While recent litigation has held social media companies responsible
for harms to users, federal legislation of social media has
meandered and AI legislation has lagged.
The Trump administration has said regulation, especially across
states instead of at a federal level, could hinder AI companies’
growth and sacrifice American labs’ lead in the global AI race, but
some lawmakers are trying to move the needle.
Some AI legislation specific to children’s safety issues — like
youth privacy, chatbot interactions and AI toy safety — have passed
through Senate subcommittees with bipartisan support, but there’s
still a long road for any such legislation to pass. Legislation at
the state level is moving faster, as seen also in the role states
have played in pushing Meta on social media harms.
“One of the things we’ve seen with social media, which I think will
still be true with AI, is that we live in a federal system where
states make laws on everything from e-bikes to driving permits to
gun laws and that federal legislation or federal rules are much more
difficult,” Kreps said.
Some say the biggest win from the progress on social media safety
this year has been heightened awareness of online dangers for kids.
Bride, whose son Carson died after experiencing severe cyberbullying
on Snapchat, said it’s encouraging to see legislators wrestling with
how to regulate AI, but acknowledged the reality that legislation
can’t keep up with the technological developments — and that kids
will continue to experience AI-related harms in the meantime.
“I don’t think we can afford any more mea culpas when kids are
concerned,” she said.
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