Massachusetts moves to pair school phone limits with tough youth social media crackdown

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts House passed a broad rewrite of Senate bill S.2581, using H.5349 as its amendment text, which is a much broader version that keeps the Senate’s restrictions on students’ personal electronic devices during the school day, and adding a sweeping new set of restrictions on youth social media access.

The most consequential part of the House version is its new online protection language. Social media platforms would be required to prohibit minors under 14 from being users of the platforms.

The Massachusetts Senate passed S.2581 in July 2025 as a school focused measure requiring public schools and districts to adopt policies prohibiting student use of personal electronic devices on school grounds during the school day and during school-sponsored activities held during the school day.

The bill directs the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to issue guidance and a model policy, requires districts to file their policies annually by Sept. 1, and bars expulsion or suspension as punishment for noncompliance.

That Senate bill focuses squarely on the school environment, defining personal electronic devices broadly to include phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, and Bluetooth-enabled devices, while exempting school-issued or school-sanctioned devices used for legitimate educational purposes.

It also requires schools to provide at least one way for parents or guardians to contact students during the school day and one way for students to contact a parent or caregiver, including in urgent situations.

The Senate bill includes several exceptions. Students could still use a device if it is required under an individualized education program, under a Section 504 plan, under other state or federal disability accommodations, while traveling off school grounds to another learning site such as early college or vocational education, or if a healthcare provider states in writing that the device is needed to treat a student’s health condition.

Section 504 refers to a federal civil rights law that requires schools to provide accommodations for students with disabilities so they can access their education on equal terms.

The House’s rewrite of the Senate bill did not come out of nowhere. In her January 22 State of the Commonwealth address, Gov. Maura Healey announced that she would file legislation to impose new social media requirements aimed at protecting children and teens, arguing that platforms had contributed to a youth mental health crisis and that stronger safeguards were needed.

Healey’s proposal was even broader than the House rewrite of the Senate bill in at least one respect. Her plan would have applied to all minors under 18.

That earlier proposal helps explain why the House’s move this week landed less as a sudden departure than as part of a broader Massachusetts effort led in part by the governor to pair school cellphone restrictions with tougher rules on how minors access social media.

The House rewrite would still require every district to have a policy prohibiting student use of personal electronic devices during the school day – allowing school districts to use secure storage or technology that renders devices inoperable – and adds the requirement that school districts provide instruction on the social, emotional, and physical risks of social media use.

It also would direct the state to develop guidance for educators and parents and creates a one-year pilot program for ten districts to test technology that can render student devices inoperable on school grounds during the school day.

Under the House rewrite of the Senate bill, social media platforms would have to terminate under-14 accounts, allow either the child or a confirmed parent to request termination, and permanently delete the terminated user’s personal information unless the law requires the data to be kept.

Those special restrictions would end at age 16.

The bill would also allow a parent of a user under 14 to request access to the data the child submitted to the platform, which the platform would have to provide within five business days.

For 14- and 15-year-olds, the House version would require verifiable parental consent before they could create or maintain an account. If parental consent is not provided, the platform would have to terminate the account. As with younger users, parents could request access to the data submitted by a 14- or 15-year-old, and the platform would have five business days to provide it.

The House language also requires platforms to implement an implement an age assurance or verification system or verification system, offer users an appeal process if their age is wrongly determined, and keep verification, appeal, and parental consent data segregated and confidential.

It also includes reporting and enforcement provisions that would put real pressure on platforms.

Companies would have to publicly post figures showing how many users were processed through the age-verification system, how many were denied access, how many were granted access after appeal, how many were allowed on with parental consent, and how many accounts were later terminated.

Violations would be treated as unfair or deceptive acts. The bill allows fines of up to $5,000 per noncompliant user account for violating the age rules and up to $1 million for certain reporting violations, with each day of noncompliance treated as a separate violation in some cases.

Reaction to the House action has reflected the breadth of its rewrite. Supporters have framed the measure as a response to mounting concerns over distraction, addiction, and mental health harms tied to phones and social media.

“This bill will protect children from harmful content and addictive algorithms, and ensure that our students are able to focus in the classroom without the distraction from cell phones,” House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano said.

Representative Kenneth Gordon, chair of the House Joint Committee on Education, said “a vast majority of [school] superintendents urged us to take the lead in restricting cell phone use from bell-to-bell in our schools.”

“This legislation,” Gordon said, “will help ensure students stay focused in the classroom, are protected from bullying and other forms of distraction, while also encouraging them to engage with one another and be present during non-instructional time.”

Gordon added that “beyond limiting cell phone use, the bill takes important steps to protect children from the harmful effects of social media on their health and well-being.”

Critics, however, have focused on the breadth of the House language and the privacy implications of forcing platforms to verify users’ ages and provide parental access to teen data.

Opponents have also said the bill’s broad definition of social media is overly broad and could reach services such as YouTube, or even Wikipedia, and that age-verification plus parental data-access provisions could create privacy and surveillance risks, especially for LGBTQ+ youth.

“Big Tech social media companies cause real harm, and lawmakers are right to want to do something about it. They should pass privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that makes sense and is enforceable,” said Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future.

“Instead,” Greer said, “Massachusetts legislators are actively helping Trump’s authoritarian takeover by pushing for legislation that expands censorship and surveillance.”

The group said the legislation would harm LGBTQ youth by putting LGBTQ organizations, reproductive health resources, and sex education materials behind age gates that would be especially harmful to vulnerable young people.

The next step is for the House and Senate to reconcile the two bills. That means the debate in Massachusetts is no longer just about whether schools should restrict student phone use. It is now also about whether the state should adopt one of the country’s strictest social media access rules for minors as part of the same legislation.

Article Topics

age verification  |  children  |  regulation  |  social media  |  U.S. Government  |  United States