By Lauri Neff
NEW YORK (AP) --While he's not exactly yelling at kids to get off his lawn quite yet, Jason Reitman says he has a hard time relating to teenagers and it's all because of the Internet.
The 37-year-old director says when he talks to kids who are 15 to 20 years younger, they "might as well be 100 years younger than me because their life they grew up with doesn't resemble my childhood at all."
He says while "a cordless phone versus a wired phone" separated him and his parents, newer generations are growing up with "the Internet as a fact of their life." "And we'll just be old people who don't understand," Reitman says.
That generational relationship with technology is the focus of Reitman's new movie, "Men, Women & Children," which expands to wide release Friday. It focuses on a group of high school students and their parents dealing with the way the Internet affects their lives.
The Oscar-nominated director says he doesn't "get social media," noting that his teen actors had to explain to him how SnapChat works.
He also says he's uncomfortable with how easily teens share their lives online. "That fuzzy line between public and private when it comes to social media is the thing that bothers me personally."
The son of director Ivan Reitman says he's already worrying about how his nearly 8-year-old daughter will maneuver her way online when she gets a cellphone in a few years.
"It's like giving the keys to the car, only they're much younger. And unlike a car, which you can drive to any part of town, on the Internet, a cellphone can really take you anywhere. So you have to hope that from the moment they can log on that you've done enough to raise them well so they're not looking for the wrong thing in the wrong places."
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More