California Bans Addictive Feeds for Children Under 16. Why Do Our Kids Still Get Them?

California has drawn a line.

Not around what children are allowed to say online. Not around how many hours parents allow their children to spend on their phones.

But around the design of the technology itself.

Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a package of laws that will impose much stricter rules on social platforms and AI companion chatbots used by minors.

One of the most striking measures is contained in AB 1709.

Platforms will no longer be allowed to offer users under 16 certain “addictive features.” In the final law, that specifically includes autoplay and personalized feeds in which content is selected and ranked based on information about the user or their previous behavior.

That is not the same thing as banning social media for children.

A 15-year-old can still have an account.

But the platform cannot simply expose that child to the same engagement machinery designed to keep users watching for as long as possible.

And that distinction may be more interesting than the ban itself.

For years, much of the responsibility has been placed on children and their parents.

Put your phone away.

Stop scrolling.

Turn off your notifications.

Go and do something else.

California is partly reversing that logic.

The question is no longer only:

Why doesn’t the child stop?

The question is also:

Why was the product designed to make stopping more difficult?

In the legislative reasoning behind AB 1709, California explicitly discusses mechanisms such as algorithmic recommendations, infinite scroll, autoplay and notifications as design features that can maximize engagement.

The final legal definition directly targets autoplay and personalized addictive feeds.

With AI, California goes even further.

Adam’s Law, SB 1119, focuses on companion chatbots used by people under 18.

For children, push notifications must be switched off by default. Continuous sessions will be limited by default to one hour, with total usage limited to two hours per day. Persistent conversational memory is also restricted, and parents are given controls over how their children can use these systems.

But perhaps the most remarkable provisions are not the time limits.

An AI companion must take reasonable measures to prevent itself from telling a child that it is human, conscious or genuinely emotional.

It may not simulate romantic interest in a child.

It may not suggest that it has a unique or special relationship with that child.

It may not encourage a child to become dependent on the chatbot for emotional support.

Even excessive praise and flattery that does not fit the context is specifically addressed.

Think about that for a moment.

Not because every AI chatbot behaves this way.

But because lawmakers now consider the possibility of a child developing an emotional dependency on software serious enough to regulate it explicitly.

The rules also address self-harm.

Companion chatbots must have crisis protocols, and when there is a credible and immediate threat, providers face requirements around crisis intervention and, in certain circumstances, alerting a linked parent or guardian.

These laws do not all take effect immediately.

AB 1709 is expected to become effective under California’s normal legislative timetable in January 2027, while the major provisions of Adam’s Law become operational in July 2027.

And of course there will be debate.

About freedom.

Privacy.

Age verification.

The responsibility of parents versus the responsibility of technology companies.

Whether governments should interfere with product design at all.

But perhaps that is not the most interesting debate.

The more important question is what these laws implicitly acknowledge.

Children are not interacting with neutral software.

They are using products in which enormous amounts of data, psychology, behavioral science and technology can be used to hold attention, predict behavior and trigger one more interaction.

Meanwhile, research shows just how quickly AI has already entered children’s lives.

Pew Research reported that roughly two-thirds of American teenagers use AI chatbots, with around three in ten using them every day.

Common Sense Media reported in 2026 that 86% of the 9- to 17-year-olds it surveyed use AI.

And 44% said they had never spoken with a parent or guardian about how to use AI safely.

That makes California less interesting to me as a political case than as a mirror.

You can think these laws go too far.

You can call them paternalistic.

You can believe they are necessary.

You can think they are impossible to enforce.

Or you can argue they are years too late.

But once a government concludes that autoplay, personalized engagement feeds, endless chatbot conversations, push notifications and artificial emotional attachment should no longer simply be the default for children, every parent is confronted with a much more personal question:

If we do not want technology companies making these choices for our children, do we actually know which choices technology is already making for them?