New Jersey's youth are dealing with a mental health crisis facing depression anxiety and other mental health struggles many with no access to treatment lawmakers in our state say social media is to blame and they're joining States from around the country in introducing legislation to make these sites accountable for the impact on children and regulate what lawmakers call addictive features assemblyman herb Conaway is one of the primary sponsors and he says the government has a responsibility to protect our kids he joins me now to discuss how the bill would hold social media sites accountable assembly men we know that social media is a big part of children's lives especially now you know given the pandemic just given the growth of it but tell me about how this bill is going to improve and impact children who use it in a safe way well we know is that there is increasing evidence that the use of social media particularly heavy use by young people has a lot of negative consequences to their life into their health we have seen over the last decade and particularly for young girls we've seen remarkable increases in suicidality of anxiety and depression uh feelings that I just don't want to be here anymore I'm not measuring up a body dysmorphia and a kids being directed uh through two areas on the internet uh that are unsafe for them where they learn about how to commit suicide as an example we've seen reports of that on the news and so these statistics should be alarming to all of us who care about the life and health of our children they are our future without question and it is up to society government and parents empowering parents to protect their children as is a parent studio in my view and we need to get parents the tools to be able to do that you know great point because I have covered those reports and it really is disheartening to hear that when you think about teenage girls especially personal to me as a girl mom and I guess what I want to know assembly man is do you feel that platforms in turn or will this bill help platforms be held accountable for the role they play in youth mental health it is a crisis we know that it certainly is a crisis it's there before our eyes and I believe this legislation which will uh require a large media platforms that is those uh who have more than 100 million dollars in Revenue uh to uh audit their platforms for uh addictive algorithms they either do it themselves which I might change or have a third party vendor come in and look at the workings of their platforms to um ensure that those platforms aren't designed to create addiction among its young users so um and if they don't do that are there going to be subjects to fines of up to 250 000 for each incidence where their um their AI their um their platforms are promoting addictive use when I say addictive use I'm talking about use that uh people are driven to do in spite of their own recognition that is causing damage to them uh this is how addiction is defined across the Spectrum whether it's drug use whether it's use of video games when you engage in activities when you are um almost unable to stop using whatever it is or doing whatever it is and you know that's causing your harm that is a Hallmark of addiction and these platforms I'm afraid are designed to create Addiction in its users so that you have someone who joins and use the platform at a young age uh and then that use may carry through many years of their life and exposing tender Minds to a significant danger and we as a society uh have to recognize that and take action to stop it well said we do need to take action and we need to hold these platforms accountable thank you so much to some of them in herb Conway for joining me and discussing such an important topic thank you glad to do it and thank you for interested in this it's very important