In a recent Senate hearing titled "Plugged Out: Examining the Impact of Technology on America's Youth," Chairman Ted Cruz emphasized the stresses that come with kids growing up in a digital age. The focus was on the impacts of technology on youth development and mental health, with a goal to arm parents with better tools for managing their children's screen time. The hearing also scrutinized education systems providing personal devices to students, according to a statement released by the Senate Commerce Committee.
Highlighting the dynamics of a "phone-based" childhood, Cruz remarked, "It’s incredibly hard to be a kid right now. All the parents I know—myself included—are concerned about the time their kids spend glued to screens, watching and reading insidious content that puts their minds and bodies at risk." A major legislative move in response to these concerns was the reintroduction of the bipartisan Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA), which Cruz, alongside Sen. Brian Schatz, aims to protect kids from the potential harmful effects of social media, with measures such as setting a minimum age for social media use at 13, and putting checks on exploitative content, as per the Senate Commerce Committee.
The KOSMA initiative would prohibit the use of addictive algorithms for users under 17 and would remove access to cell phones in classrooms for schools that receive federal funds. It received strong bipartisan support in February 2025 and is a crucial component in the battle against the overuse of technology by young people. Citing shocking usage statistics, Cruz said, "Children ages 8 to 12 now use screens on average five and a half hours each day. For teens, it’s even higher at eight hours and 39 minutes. Put another way—over half the time a teenager is awake is spent staring at a screen!" as noted by the press release.
In response to the proliferation of personal devices in schools, Cruz criticized policies from the Biden administration, which invested heavily in providing internet devices and tried to expand the E-Rate program to support unsupervised internet access. "Sadly, parents face further challenges in monitoring and limiting their children’s screen time, in part because our education system—fueled by federal subsidies and incentives—has increasingly required the use of internet-connected devices in schools," Cruz stated, signifying a clash between political intentions and parental control, according to the same press release.
Framing the digital dilemma as a question of balance and regulation, the hearing and the proposed KOSMA legislation spotlight the tension between technological advancement and its impacts on society's youngest members. As Cruz passionately concluded, “KOSMA meets parents where they’re at. It’s a real struggle to keep your kid offline when you’re told that ‘all of my friends are on Instagram and TikTok.’ It’s incredibly hard to be the ‘one parent’ who won’t let your kid have a phone or a social media account," as obtained by the Senate Commerce Committee.
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