HB 24-1136

House Bill 24-1136, titled "Healthier Social Media Use by Youth," requires the Colorado Department of Education to create a resource bank with scholarly articles and curricula about the mental and physical impacts of social media on young people. This information will be made available free of charge to schools, educators, parents, and community providers starting July 1, 2025. Additionally, the bill mandates that social media platforms provide users under 18 with notifications about the risks of excessive use and display alerts every 30 minutes if they spend more than an hour on these sites or access them between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The bill was signed into law by the governor on June 6, 2024, and became effective on August 7, 2024.

Official Summary

The act requires the department of education (department) to create and maintain a resource bank of evidence-based, research-based, scholarly articles and promising program materials and curricula pertaining to the mental and physical health impacts of social media use by youth, internet safety, and cybersecurity. The resource bank will be used in elementary and secondary schools in the state. The department is required to convene a temporary stakeholder group of no more than 15 persons to assist in the creation of the resource bank. The resource materials must be made available free of charge no later than July 1, 2025, to local education providers, professional educators, parents or guardians of youth, students, and community providers. The act strongly encourages the department to expand local student wellness programs to include programs that address the impacts of problematic technology use on the mental and physical well-being of Colorado youth. On or after January 1, 2026, the act requires a social media platform, as defined by the act, to establish a function that provides a user who is under the age of 18 with information about social media that helps the user understand the impact of social media use on the developing brain and the mental and physical health of youth or displays a notification every 30 minutes when the user: Has spent one hour on social media platforms in a 24-hour period; or Is on a social media platform between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The chief information officer in the Colorado office of information technology, in consultation with the director of the center for health and environmental data division of the Colorado department of public health and environment and the temporary stakeholder group shall establish standards for the function. The act appropriates $13,974 from the general fund to the department of education for use by the student learning division to implement the bill. APPROVED by Governor June 6, 2024 EFFECTIVE August 7, 2024(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)

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