NEW YORK — The New York City Council is debating a law that would set time limits on young people’s social media use as concerns grow over its effects on mental health.

At a hearing Tuesday afternoon, Councilwoman Althea Stevens, D-Bronx, chair of the Committee on Children and Youth, asked health officials to weigh in on her bill, which would prohibit social media companies from allowing young people on their platforms for more than one hour per day without parental consent.

The draft law, which in addition to Stevens has six other co-sponsors, would also ban the companies from promoting targeted advertisements or content to minors. Other proposals in the legislative package would require city agencies to report on social media’s impact on young people’s mental health and study how their online activity can lead to face-to-face altercations.

“This legislation here today is not the final answer,” Stevens said during a news conference on the City Hall steps ahead of the hearing. “It is a starting point. It is about bringing real, honest conversations about how we create a balance, accountability and protection for our youth in this digital age.”

“We are exploring steps like limiting daily (social) media use, restricting targeted ads to minors, and requiring deeper reporting on mental health impacts from these platforms,” she added.

Council Speaker Julie Menin said the impacts of social media on young people have grown “completely out of hand.”

“It’s absolutely not regulated, and it’s already demonstrated to have a detrimental impact on both the physical and the mental health of young people,” Menin continued. “We’re not asking for a major change. We’re literally asking for common-sense policies that will protect our youth from this mental health crisis.”

A 2024 report from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that teens who use social media self-report higher rates of anxiety and depression, as well as other adverse experiences online, such as cyberbullying or social pressure.

The majority of teens, 62%, report that social media has a negative or mixed impact on their mental health, including 4% who said it has no positive impact at all, according to survey results shared at the hearing. Close to half of parents think their children use social media “too much.”

But it’s not just how many hours young people are spending on social media that’s having an impact, health officials said. It’s also what they’re using the platforms for — to explore interests, build community and create content, all of which have been associated with positive mental health effects, or to scroll algorithmic feeds.

“Research we’re seeing suggests that potentially even more important than the amount of time on screens is how youth are using their time on screen,” Marnie Davidoff, assistant commissioner for the agency’s Bureau of Children, Youth and Families, said during the hearing.

“Passive consumption, scrolling through curated feeds, things that are going to induce social comparison,” she added. “That is more consistently linked to depression, anxiety, body image, et cetera.”

The city has tried to reverse those trends by launching free online therapy for teens and offering school-based mental health services. Some 36,000 young people have registered for the first program, TeenSpace, since it was created. In the program’s second year, 12% of participants said social media was one of their top reasons for seeking help, officials said.

“Social media platforms are explicitly designed, you know, around this ‘variable reward schedule’,” said Dr. Jorge Petit, executive deputy commissioner at the Health Department’s division of mental hygiene. “It’s the same mechanisms that drive slot-machine use, where unpredictable positive feedback — the surge of likes, viral posts — is more reinforcing that consistent rewards.”

“There is growing clinical and public health recognition that youth social media use often reflects anticipatory and reward-seeking behavioral patterns that are analogous — they’re not identical — to those seen in substance-related and behavioral addictions.”

Tech executives have pushed back against similar allegations that their platforms are addictive to young people, pointing to parental controls and other new safety features for minors. Last month, Meta and YouTube faced a major setback when they were found liable for designs that led to a young girl’s social media addiction; both companies have announced their plans to appeal.

The City Council is the latest legislative body to take up the work of regulating social media companies for minors. On the state level, Gov. Kathy Hochul championed a law that limited young people’s algorithmic feeds and night-time push notifications. In Washington, D.C., lawmakers are considering bipartisan legislation known as the Kids Online Safety Act, which would add new safeguards for the age group. And abroad, some countries are going even further, moving to ban social media for children.

In New York City, Menin told reporters that Tuesday’s hearing was the start of an “iterative process,” including feedback from young people, parents and tech companies before any local laws are passed.

“This is a beginning of a conversation,” Menin said.

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