Built for Adults, Designed for Profit, and Optimized for Addiction

Evan Swensen
January 15, 2026

Cedar Valley News – January 15, 2026
Built for Adults, Designed for Profit, and Optimized for Addiction
By: Chloe Papadakis
From the fictional town of Cedar Valley, where characters from Quiet Echo continue to respond to real-world events.

Two weeks ago, Virginia became the first state to limit social media use for kids under sixteen to one hour per day. Not a suggestion. Not a guideline. A law.

The reactions were predictable. Tech companies cried censorship. Free speech advocates filed lawsuits. Teenagers rolled their eyes. But here’s what caught my attention: the silence from parents. Not outrage. Not celebration. Just a long, collective exhale—as if someone had finally said out loud what we’d been thinking for years.

I have a four-year-old daughter. Elena isn’t on TikTok yet. She doesn’t know what Instagram is. But I watch her cousins, her older neighbors, the teenagers at the library, and I see what’s coming. Heads bent over glowing screens. Conversations abandoned mid-sentence. That faraway look in their eyes, like they’re physically present but mentally somewhere else entirely.

The statistics are brutal. Teens who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of depression and anxiety. Nearly five hours a day is now average. And 83 percent of parents believe their children’s mental health is getting worse—not better.

We didn’t need a study to tell us this. We can see it in our living rooms.

Governor Youngkin’s law requires social media companies to verify users’ ages and automatically limit anyone under sixteen to sixty minutes daily unless a parent explicitly grants more time. It puts the burden where it belongs—on the platforms that designed these apps to be addictive in the first place.

Of course, the lawsuits have already started. NetChoice, a tech industry group, argues that limiting social media violates minors’ free speech rights. “The Constitution leaves the power to decide what speech is appropriate for minors where it belongs: with their parents,” their complaint reads.

And they’re not entirely wrong. This is a parenting issue. It always has been.

But here’s what the tech companies don’t want to admit: they built their platforms to override parental judgment. Infinite scroll. Algorithmic feeds that learn what hooks you and serve you more of it. Push notifications designed to trigger dopamine. These aren’t neutral tools. They’re engineered to capture attention—and they’re very, very good at it.

As a parent, I’m supposed to compete with a billion-dollar algorithm using willpower and good intentions? That’s not a fair fight.

New York’s Governor Hochul announced similar proposals this month—expanding age verification, disabling AI chatbots for kids, requiring the highest privacy settings by default. Other states are watching.

I’m not naïve enough to think a law will fix everything. Kids will find workarounds. VPNs exist. Older siblings have accounts. But laws shape culture, and culture shapes behavior. We ban cigarette sales to minors not because it prevents all teenage smoking, but because it sends a message about what we value. We’re saying: your developing brain matters. Your attention is precious. These companies don’t get unlimited access to your childhood.

Elena asked me the other day why I sometimes stare at my phone when she’s talking to me. I didn’t have a good answer. The truth is, I’m fighting the same battle. I know what it feels like to reach for the screen without thinking, to scroll when I should be present, to feel that pull toward something designed to pull me.

If I struggle with it at twenty-eight, how is a twelve-year-old supposed to resist?

Maybe the real gift of this law isn’t the time limit itself. Maybe it’s permission. Permission for parents to say no without feeling like they’re the only ones. Permission to set boundaries that feel supported by something larger than their own exhausted resolve.

Virginia’s experiment might fail. The courts might strike it down. But the conversation has started—and conversations matter. We’re finally asking whether childhood should include unlimited access to platforms built for adults, designed for profit, and optimized for addiction.

One hour isn’t a prison sentence. It’s a starting point. A breath. A reminder that there’s a world beyond the screen, and our kids deserve to know it.

Elena and I made cookies last weekend. No phones. No timers going off. Just flour on the counter and laughter when the icing got everywhere. It was messy and imperfect and exactly what childhood should be.

They built their platforms for adults, designed them for profit, and optimized them for addiction. Let’s build something different—a childhood designed for purpose and optimized for presence.

Sixty minutes of scrolling can’t compete with that. Not really. Not if we remember what we’re fighting for.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series. While the people and town are fictional, the national events they reflect on are real.

Want to know the full story behind Cedar Valley? Teresa, Caleb, Dan, and the community you’ve come to know in these editorials first came together in Quiet Echo: When Loud Voices Divide, Quiet Ones Bring Together. Discover how a small town found its way from fear to fellowship—one quiet act of courage at a time. Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ME4nSs

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