New Jersey voters back tougher social media rules to protect children

New Jersey voters are sending a clear message on social media and children’s mental health: they want stronger rules, and they want them now. In a Stockton University poll of 642 registered voters, 91 percent said social media plays a major role in children’s mental-health challenges, while 77 percent said they were very concerned about children being exposed to harmful content online.

The survey, conducted April 21-27, found support that went well beyond general worry. Three-quarters of voters favored stronger regulations to protect children online even if those rules limit some online freedoms. Support was even higher for specific safeguards: 93 percent backed stronger default data-privacy standards for users under 18, 88 percent supported warning labels on content that may negatively affect children’s mental health, and 79 percent favored more funding for school-based mental-health services. Sixty-eight percent said social media companies and parents should share equal responsibility for protecting children online.

The results also pointed to a new policy front: artificial intelligence. Seventy-four percent of voters supported increased government regulation of how AI recommends content to children online, even though only 32 percent said they were very familiar with those recommendation systems and 38 percent said they were somewhat familiar. That gap suggests many voters sense a problem even if they do not fully understand the technology shaping what teens see every day.

The poll lands in the middle of an active debate in Trenton. Assembly bill A4015, the New Jersey Kids Code Act, was introduced February 5 and would adopt an age-appropriate design code for the state. The measure is sponsored by Assemblywomen Andrea Katz, Marisa Sweeney and Luanne Peterpaul, with Assemblyman Robert J. Karabinchak as co-sponsor. Legislative findings tied to the bill cite the U.S. Surgeon General’s May 2023 advisory, including concerns about heavy social media use and mental-health risk among adolescents.

New Jersey has already begun testing platform accountability in court. Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin sued TikTok on October 8, 2024, over alleged deceptive and abusive practices harming youth, and the state joined a broader lawsuit against Meta in October 2023 over alleged addictive features affecting children and teens.

In Cumberland County, the polling questions are not abstract. The Cumberland County Department of Human Services lists youth mental-health providers, a mental-health emergency hotline and 988, while the Cumberland County Mental Health & Addictions Board coordinates countywide prevention education and an annual Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk. Stockton’s numbers show broad backing for state action, but the real test in Cumberland County will be whether lawmakers, schools and families can turn that support into rules, services and enforcement that actually reach the teens who need them most.