A Missouri lawmaker wants to crack down on social media use.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley just introduced legislation that he said is designed to curb social media addiction.
The Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act, or SMART Act, would automatically limit the amount of time a user could spend on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube to just 30 minutes each day.
According to the bill, you would be about to adjust that time limit to make it longer, but it would reset to 30 minutes every month.
🔽 READ THE BILL 🔽
The SMART Act would also ban the infinite scrolling and autoplay features on social media platforms, which Sen. Hawley said will make it easier to leave an app or site when you can't scroll anymore.
In a statement, Sen. Hawley said:
"Big tech has embraced a business model of addiction. Too much of the 'innovation' in this space is designed not to create better products, but to capture more attention by using psychological tricks that make it difficult to look away. This legislation will put an end to that and encourage true innovation by tech companies."
"They’re all fighting for your time, which is your money," said WPTV Internet Security Expert Alan Crowetz with InfoStream.
Crowetz said popular apps are developing more features to keep you coming back for more.
"Artificial intelligence and big data analysis. Where they can look at you and they can almost know more about you than you know about you," said Crowetz.
Sen. Hawley introduced the SMART Act last month.
