THE WILD WEST OF KIDS ONLINE: ALL 50 STATES ARE FINALLY DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
And a scrappy UC Davis database just became your new best friend for figuring out what, exactly, that "something" is.
Imagine trying to read 379 pieces of legislation — introduced, passed, failed, and enacted — across all 50 states, spanning four years, covering everything from TikTok algorithms to parental consent forms. Now imagine doing that without a searchable database. That's basically what parents, researchers, and policymakers were doing until a team of UC Davis researchers said, "Enough. We built the thing." The Youth Digital Policy Repository (YDPR) is now live, free, and frankly overdue — a one-stop digital atlas for every state law aimed at protecting kids from the darker corners of the internet. Here's your complete guide to what it is, why it matters, and how to use it.
The Big Picture: All 50 States, One Shared Panic
Here's a stat that should make every parent put down their phone (ironically): as of March 2026, every single U.S. state had introduced at least one bill to regulate social media or digital platforms for minors under 18. Every. Single. One. Even the states that can't agree on what to name a rest stop have agreed that kids and unchecked algorithms are a bad mix.
The urgency isn't manufactured. A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found:
- 48% of American teens aged 13–17 said social media is harmful to people their age
- 44% of parents named social media as the #1 threat to their child's mental health
Meanwhile, the platforms kept the infinite scroll spinning, the recommendation algorithms humming, and the dopamine hits coming. Other countries got impatient:
- 🇦🇺 Australia banned social media for under-16s in 2024 — it took effect December 2025
- 🇬🇧 The U.K. announced a similar ban for under-16s, launching 2027
- 🇺🇸 The U.S.? A beautifully chaotic patchwork of 379 bills and counting
America, true to form, chose federalism over a federal fix — which is exactly why a tracking tool became essential.
What Is the Youth Digital Policy Repository?
Built inside the UC Davis Human Development and Media Lab, the YDPR is an open-source, publicly accessible database that catalogs every piece of U.S. state legislation aimed at regulating digital media for minors. Think of it as a Google Maps for kids' digital safety laws — except instead of traffic jams, it shows you legislative gridlock.
What's Inside the Database
The repository currently tracks 379 pieces of legislation dating back to 2022, filterable by:
| Filter | What It Does |
|---|---|
| State | See every bill introduced in your state |
| Year | Track legislative trends from 2022 onward |
| Status | Introduced / Passed / Failed / Enacted |
| Topic | 18 specific policy categories (see below) |
The 18 Policy Topics Tracked
These aren't vague categories — each one is precisely defined and coded by a two-person research team:
- Age Verification — Stricter ID checks before kids can create accounts
- Parental Consent — Platforms must ask parents before signing up 13–17-year-olds
- Hours of Access — Limits on when minors can log on or receive push notifications
- Parental Account Access — Parents can view (or fully access) their child's account
- Data Privacy — Restrictions on collecting and selling minors' personal data
- Targeted Ads — No more algorithmically stalking kids with ads
- Algorithms & Platform Design — Banning feeds that push self-harm, weapons, or drug content to minors
- Pornographic Content — Mandatory blocks for users under 18
- Blocking Foreign Apps — Protecting user data from foreign-owned platforms
- Artificial Intelligence — Limiting AI's reach into children's digital lives
- Smartphones in Schools — Yes, that's a legislative category now
- Media Literacy — Teaching kids to navigate the internet critically
- Parental Controls — Mandating built-in tools for parents
- Establish Commissions — Creating state-level oversight bodies
- Social Media Tax — Taxing platforms that profit from minors
- Reporting Abuse — Mandatory reporting requirements for platforms
- Child Labor — Addressing child influencers and monetized content
- Screentime Notifications — Alerts to help families monitor usage
Meet the Team Behind the Tool
This isn't a government project or a Big Tech initiative — it's a small, dedicated academic team that decided the policy landscape needed a librarian. Badly.
The Core Researchers
Samantha Vigil, MA (Project Lead, PhD Candidate, UC Davis) The architect of the YDPR. Vigil has worked directly with the California State Legislature and the Department of Public Health. Her research philosophy is refreshingly practical: instead of banning kids from the internet entirely, fix the platforms. "Social media and AI are so ingrained in the world that children are growing up in," she said, "so to close the door and say you don't get to use this takes away a lot of opportunities."
Drew Cingel, PhD (Associate Professor, UC Davis) The primary investigator, whose research sits at the crossroads of child development and media effects. He's particularly focused on how infinite scrolling and recommendation algorithms harm adolescent mental health — and he's been funded by Netflix and Common Sense Media to study exactly that. The irony is not lost on us.
Sarah Coyne, PhD (Professor, Brigham Young University) Over 200 publications on media, aggression, gender, and child development. She also has five children, which means her research is both academic and deeply personal.
Sonia Livingstone, DPhil (Professor, London School of Economics) The international heavyweight of the team. She founded the 33-country EU Kids Online network, has advised the UN, OECD, European Parliament, and Council of Europe, and has published 23 books on children's digital rights. When she talks, policymakers listen.
Jane Shawcroft, PhD (The Ohio State University) Focuses on how technology fits into family life — using longitudinal methods to track how kids' relationships with technology evolve over time.
Matthew Shawcroft, MS (UC Davis) The data geography wizard who helps make all this information spatially and analytically coherent.
How the Repository Works (The Nerdy Bit)
The YDPR isn't just a list — it's a living document with a rigorous methodology:
- Undergraduate research assistants at UC Davis identify, read, and code every digital-media-related bill at each stage of the lawmaking process
- Sources monitored weekly include LegiScan.com, NCSL.org, Senate.gov (for each state), CNN, the New York Times, and Common Sense Media
- Each bill is coded using an 18-topic binary scheme (1 = bill addresses this topic, 0 = it doesn't), verified by two independent coders
- Updates drop twice a year: June and November — the most recent update is July 2026
- The full dataset is also downloadable via Zenodo for researchers who want to dig into the raw data
🔗 Your Essential Links
Here's everything you need, bookmarked and ready:
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| 🗂️ Youth Digital Policy Repository (Live Dashboard) | youthdigitalpolicyrepository.com |
| 📰 UC Davis Research Coverage | Education Research Report |
| 📄 Academic Paper (Journal of Children and Media) | doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2026.2698291 |
| 💾 Download the Full Dataset (Zenodo) | zenodo.org/records/21227420 |
| ✉️ Contact the YDPR Team | info@youthdigitalpolicyrepository.com |
Why This Actually Matters
The YDPR's genius is in what it enables — not just for researchers, but for everyone:
- Parents can look up exactly what their state has passed, attempted, or fumbled on kids' digital safety
- Policymakers can see what's working in other states before drafting new bills — no more reinventing the wheel in a committee room
- Researchers get a clean, coded dataset for comparative analysis across all 50 states
- Journalists (and curious readers like you) get a transparent, up-to-date record of the legislative landscape
As Professor Cingel put it: "We hope that it helps politicians and policymakers in state governments across the United States to be aware of what other states are doing to help shape our own local and state laws."
The key takeaway here is deceptively simple: the U.S. isn't moving slowly on kids' digital safety because nobody cares — it's moving in 50 different directions at once because nobody had a map. Now there's a map. Use it.
Published in the Journal of Children and Media (2026) | Built at the UC Davis Human Development and Media Lab | Free, open-source, and updated biannually
Sources & Links
Here is a complete, organized reference list for everything cited in the article.
🏛️ Primary Source — The Repository Itself
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| Youth Digital Policy Repository — Live Dashboard | youthdigitalpolicyrepository.com/#dashboard |
| YDPR — Full Downloadable Dataset (Zenodo Archive) | zenodo.org/records/21227420 |
| YDPR — July 2026 Dataset Direct Download (ZIP) | zenodo.org/records/21227421 |
| YDPR — Contact the Team | info@youthdigitalpolicyrepository.com |
📄 Academic Publication
| Citation | Link |
|---|---|
| Vigil, S. L., Shawcroft, M., Cingel, D. P., Coyne, S. M., Livingstone, S., & Shawcroft, J. (2026). The youth digital policy repository: A tool for tracking digital media legislation aimed at minors. Journal of Children and Media, 1–7. | doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2026.2698291 |
📰 News & Research Coverage
| Source | Link |
|---|---|
| Education Research Report — All 50 states have introduced bills to regulate digital media for kids (Aug. 5, 2026) | educationresearchreport.blogspot.com |
🔬 Research Institutions & Labs
| Institution | Link |
|---|---|
| UC Davis Human Development and Media Lab | medialabs.ucdavis.edu |
| UC Davis — Department of Communication | communication.ucdavis.edu |
| Samantha Vigil — UC Davis Researcher Profile | medialabs.ucdavis.edu/people/samantha-vigil |
| Drew Cingel — UC Davis Faculty Profile | communication.ucdavis.edu/people/drew-cingel |
📊 Survey & Statistics
| Source | Link |
|---|---|
| Pew Research Center — Teens, Social Media & Mental Health (2025) | pewresearch.org — Full Report PDF |
🌍 International Legislation Referenced
| Country / Law | Link |
|---|---|
| 🇦🇺 Australia — Social Media Ban for Under-16s (UNICEF Explainer) | unicef.org.au — Social Media Ban Explainer |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom — Social Media Ban for Under-16s Announcement (June 2026) | gov.uk — Official Government Announcement |
🗂️ Legislative Tracking Resources (Used by YDPR Research Team)
| Source | Link |
|---|---|
| LegiScan — State Bill Tracking | legiscan.com |
| National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) | ncsl.org |
| Common Sense Media | commonsensemedia.org |
All links verified as of August 5, 2026. The YDPR dataset is updated biannually every June and November.