Assembly Bill 56 only provides an unskippable pop-up, making it nothing but just another ad.
On October 13, 2025, California Assembly Bill 56 was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom. The bill introduces health warning labels for social media use. These labels would appear as an unskippable 30-second pop-up after three hours of activity and would reappear for each subsequent hour spent on the same platform. Even though a similar approach has worked with smoking, the youth of today are much more savvy and are already used to looking for loopholes around any internet limitations. Therefore, this bill is rather ineffective in practice.
However, while this warning is a good start, I am doubtful that its effects will actually curb social media addiction for everyone. Due to the warning being a pop-up, teenagers are likely to dismiss it. A survey by Epsilon, a marketing news platform, found that 88% of consumers are less likely to pay attention to repetitive ads. So if the warning just annoys people into ignoring it, how can anyone be expected to take it seriously?
Mr. Howard, an English teacher, voiced his opinions on the matter. “I don’t know if it’s the right solution. I am glad that we are trying some things, and I’m interested to see how it plays out because it looks a lot like inconveniencing people rather than inconveniencing the social media platform, forcing people to go through a bunch of warning screens and pausing what they’re doing to just give them a message that says, “Hey, this is bad for your health.” I don’t really think it does much.” Mr. Howard later went on to suggest an alternative solution. “So what I would like to see instead is forcing social media companies to more strictly moderate what goes on.”
Similarly, sophomore student Issa Jesto’s statement has demonstrated the general opinion on the effectiveness of pop-ups. ”I find them annoying. Who likes pop-up ads?” She also chimed in about her beliefs on the effects of social media. “It (social media platforms) follows the things you specifically enjoy. Say your ‘For You’ page. It’s catered towards you, so you’ll only see information you really want to see. You won’t get the full picture.”
Although this law will likely be able to help stop phone addiction for a few, it is only a first step toward making social media a safer space.
Eagle Era 
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