SACRAMENTO, CA – In a move that signals a paradigm shift in the regulation of the attention economy, California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a comprehensive suite of 13 laws designed to fundamentally alter how social media platforms interact with children and teenagers. At the heart of this legislative package is Assembly Bill 1709 (AB 1709), a first-of-its-kind mandate that targets the structural "hooks" of digital platforms—specifically infinite scroll and autoplay—which critics and neuroscientists alike have long identified as primary drivers of compulsive behavior in young users.
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The legislation represents the most aggressive effort in the United States to decouple digital engagement from psychological exploitation. By requiring platforms to either disable these features for users under 16 or exclude those users from the platform entirely, California is attempting to set a "safety-by-design" standard that could reverberate across the global technology sector.
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Main Facts: The Scope of the New Mandates
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The legislative package signed by Governor Newsom is multi-faceted, addressing not only the mechanics of social media but also the burgeoning field of generative artificial intelligence. The primary components of the laws include:
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- The Ban on "Addictive" Design: AB 1709 explicitly targets features that facilitate "mindless" consumption. This includes "infinite scroll," where content is loaded continuously to prevent a natural stopping point, and "autoplay," which initiates a new video or audio clip without a deliberate user action.
- AI Chatbot Restrictions: The laws establish the nation’s first significant regulations regarding "companion" chatbots. These AI entities, often designed to mimic human friendship or romantic interest, must now have age-appropriate guardrails to prevent emotional manipulation and data harvesting of minors.
- Privacy and Exploitation Protections: Beyond design features, the laws strengthen privacy protections for minors, making it harder for platforms to collect and monetize the behavioral data of children.
- Compliance or Exclusion: Platforms are faced with a binary choice: they must re-engineer their interfaces to be less addictive for the under-16 demographic or implement robust age-verification systems to deny them access to the standard, "addictive" version of the service.
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Governor Newsom’s office characterized the move as an essential intervention in a public health crisis, describing the bills as the "strongest child safety, chatbot, and social media laws in the nation."
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Chronology: From Innovation to Intervention
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The path to this legislative milestone began two decades ago, rooted in design choices that were initially hailed as revolutionary.
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2006: The Birth of the Infinite ScrollnEngineer Aza Raskin created the infinite scroll as a way to streamline the user experience, removing the "friction" of clicking to a next page. At the time, it was viewed as a triumph of interface design.
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2018: The Architect’s RegretnBy 2018, the societal impact of the infinite scroll had become clear. Raskin went on the record with the BBC, expressing deep regret over his invention. He noted that behind every screen, thousands of engineers are tasked with making the experience "maximally addicting." This period marked the beginning of a "tech-lash," as former industry insiders began to warn the public about the psychological toll of their creations.
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2021–2025: The Rise of Short-Form Video and AInThe mass adoption of TikTok introduced a powerful combination of autoplay and infinite scroll, coupled with a highly sophisticated recommendation engine. Simultaneously, the emergence of AI chatbots created new avenues for digital attachment. Research from institutions like Stanford Medicine began to highlight the biological mechanisms—specifically the dopamine pathways—that these technologies were activating.
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February 2026: The European PrecedentnThe European Union, under the Digital Services Act, took the first major regulatory step by ordering TikTok and other platforms to disable addictive features or face massive fines. This provided a legal and technical roadmap for California’s lawmakers.
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September 2026: California’s Legislative ActionnFollowing months of debate and lobbying, Governor Newsom signed the 13-bill package, officially making California the domestic leader in digital safety for minors.
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Supporting Data: The Neurobiology of the "Hook"
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The impetus for these laws is grounded in a growing body of scientific evidence regarding how digital design interacts with the developing human brain.
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The Dopamine Loop
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Neuroscientists at Stanford Medicine have pointed out that features like infinite scroll hijack the "ancient brain"—the primitive reward system designed to encourage survival behaviors. When a user scrolls and finds a piece of interesting content, the brain releases a small burst of dopamine. Because the scroll is infinite, the "reward" is unpredictable, creating a "variable reward schedule"—the same psychological mechanism that makes slot machines so addictive. Over time, the brain requires more of the stimulus just to feel "normal," leading to compulsive use.
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The Executive Function Gap
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Psychologist Octavio Ortega Esteban has highlighted the specific vulnerability of children to "autoplay." For an adult, stopping a video requires executive function—the ability to plan, focus attention, and juggle multiple tasks. In children, the prefrontal cortex (the seat of executive function) is not fully developed. Autoplay removes the "moment of choice," shifting the child from an active participant to a passive consumer.
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Displacement Activity
A significant concern for public health experts is "displacement." When children spend six to nine hours a day in a state of passive consumption, they are displacing essential developmental activities: sleep, physical exercise, face-to-face social interaction, and deep focused study. By establishing these behaviors as a default "displacement activity" early in life, platforms may be cementing lifelong patterns of stress and reduced attention spans.
Official Responses: A Divided Reception
The passage of these laws has sparked a fierce debate between those prioritizing child safety and those concerned with digital civil liberties.
The Governor’s Stance:
Governor Newsom’s administration views these laws as a necessary check on corporate power. "California is taking a stand against the exploitation of our children’s attention and mental health," a spokesperson stated. "We are no longer willing to allow tech companies to conduct a massive, unregulated psychological experiment on an entire generation."
The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) Critique:
The EFF, while acknowledging the good intentions of the legislature, has voiced strong opposition to AB 1709. The organization argues that the law is "deeply flawed" and could inadvertently harm the very people it seeks to protect. The EFF’s primary concern is that by forcing platforms to age-gate or sanitize content, they are cutting off vulnerable and marginalized youth—such as LGBTQ+ teens in restrictive environments—from supportive online communities that serve as their only lifeline. They argue that the law could lead to "over-censorship" and a "walled garden" internet that stifles free expression.
Industry Pushback:
While major tech firms have been cautious in their public statements, industry trade groups have hinted at potential legal challenges, suggesting that the laws may violate First Amendment rights regarding the "editorial discretion" of platforms to present content as they see fit.
Implications: The "California Effect" and Beyond
The enactment of these 13 laws carries implications that extend far beyond the borders of the Golden State.
The National Precedent
Historically, California’s regulatory environment often becomes the de facto national standard—a phenomenon known as the "California Effect." Because it is technologically difficult and expensive for companies to maintain two different versions of a platform (one for California and one for the rest of the U.S.), many companies may simply apply the California safety standards to all American users.
The Future of "Safety by Design"
This legislation marks a transition from a "buyer beware" model of digital consumption to a "safety by design" mandate. It forces engineers to consider the psychological impact of a feature at the drafting stage, rather than treating addiction as an unintended side effect to be managed later.
Redefining the Digital Rights of Minors
By explicitly regulating AI chatbots and "companion" AI, California is acknowledging that the relationship between humans and machines is changing. The laws suggest that children have a right to be protected from parasocial relationships with algorithms that are designed to extract data or influence behavior.
Conclusion
As California moves to dismantle the infinite scroll, it is challenging the fundamental business model of Silicon Valley, which has long equated "time spent on site" with success. If successful, these laws could lead to a "slower" internet for the next generation—one characterized by intentional choices rather than compulsive loops. However, the true test will lie in the implementation: whether tech giants can find new ways to circumvent the spirit of the law, and whether the courts will uphold this unprecedented intervention into the architecture of the digital world.
Reporting by Katie McCaskey and the Addiction News Editorial Staff.
Published: September 18, 2026.
Sources:
- Cal Matters: "California enacts laws restricting chatbots and banning teens from ‘addictive’ social media" (Sept 10, 2026).
- Electronic Freedom Foundation: "EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California’s AB 1709" (Aug 31, 2026).
- Stanford Medicine: "Why our brains are wired for addiction" (Aug 5, 2025).
- TechCrunch: "EU says TikTok must disable ‘addictive’ features" (Feb 6, 2026).
- Octavio Ortega Esteban: "YouTube Autoplay and the Psychology of Passive Consumption in Kids" (July 22, 2026).
