Today she’s Utah’s first lady, but she grew up poor on a family ranch in Mount Pleasant, one of 10 children, Abby Cox told an audience of Wasatch County students and residents at the annual Issues Conference this week.
It wasn’t until she was volunteering at a homeless shelter as an adult that her upbringing was recontextualized.
“Sometimes, we’re like … ‘That would never happen to me,’” she said. “My dad lost his job when I was 10 years old. … That could have been me in that homeless shelter.”
Promoting empathy for others’ situations was a key message of the Issues Conference, which featured speakers Cox and Roosevelt rodeo athlete Braxten Nielsen, who shared his story of learning to walk again after an injury left him paraplegic.
The Issues Conference has been held annually for 37 years and is a collaborative effort of Wasatch County Parks & Recreation, the Wasatch County Health Department, Wasatch Behavioral Health and the Wasatch County School District. The conference aims to address community issues and build resilience in Wasatch County’s youth.
Wasatch County Recreation Center Director Amaria Scovil said engendering more understanding for differences in opinion was the goal of this year’s conference.
That’s the same mission as Gov. Spencer Cox’s “Disagree Better” initiative, which promotes civil debate across the political aisle.
In her speech, Abby Cox targeted social media and news outlets as contributors to youth mental health issues and the polarization of U.S. politics.
She said she had been talking to a middle and high school teacher the day prior who shared that their students were struggling because things were “really heavy for them right now.”
“I thought I had a lot of stress as a kid working on the farm,” she said. “But what occurs to me is that what you’re facing is these moments that as humans we were never meant to face. We were never meant to carry around these heavy things, social media and the politics that you’re seeing every day, the world events that you’re seeing every day.”
She showed a clip from an interview with Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and author of “The Anxious Generation,” the New York Times best-seller about the impact of phones on youth.
“How about, all of a sudden, we give everybody a video arcade in their pocket, a porn theater in their pocket, a gambling casino in their pocket, every television station in their pocket? Oh, and they can bring it to school. How about that?” Haidt said. “That’s what changed. The loss of what we recognize as childhood … and the replacement by basically just different apps, all day long.”
Though Haidt is a proponent for banning student cell phone use in schools, Abby Cox did not mention Senate Bill 96, the bill that would restrict student smart device use for the entire school day that passed in the Utah State House of Representatives Feb. 26. As of Friday morning, the bill still needed to be signed into law by her husband, the governor. If signed, the bill would take effect July 1.
However, she did refer to Utah’s four lawsuits against social media companies filed since 2023. The lawsuits are a collaboration between the Utah Office of the Attorney General and the Utah Department of Commerce’s Division of Consumer Protection. Two of the lawsuits are against TikTok, while one is against Meta, and one is against Snap Inc.
Utah first lady Abby Cox spoke at Wasatch High School on Wednesday as part of the annual Issues Conference. Credit: Christopher Reeves 
Utah first lady Abby Cox spoke about her experiences promoting the Special Olympics’ Unified Sports program as a way to “show up” in the community. Credit: Christopher Reeves 
The Issues Conference averages around 1,200 attendees per year, according to Amaria Scovil with Wasatch County Parks & Recreation. Credit: Christopher Reeves
The four lawsuits focus on “alleged unconscionable design features and business practices that may encourage prolonged and compulsive use by minors, misrepresent the level of safety provided to parents or young users or fail to adequately protect children from harm” and aim to “place reasonable restrictions that ensure minors are not harmed by these companies that have prioritized profits over their health and wellbeing,” according to the Office of the Attorney General.
“Social media companies know exactly what they’re doing to you, and they don’t care,” Cox said. “They know that they are hurting you. That’s the point because every click, every video, every time you’re sitting there scrolling, you are giving them your money. So they are getting rich off your anxiety, depression and self-harm.”
She added that social media, news outlets and politicians feed on anger and political polarization.
When consuming news, it is important to be aware of bias and to know that “on either side, somebody is trying to get you outraged,” she argued, adding that outrage and hopelessness feed a cycle of continued social media use.
“They want you to look inside and say, ‘I lose hope because I can’t do anything about this. I can’t do anything about the conflict in Iran. I can’t do anything about the conflict in other places. I can’t do anything about the people that are getting hurt that I see every day,’” she said.
Cox argued the solution was found in community service.
“You’re not going to go out and change whatever’s happening in all those crazy places that you’re reading about every day,” she said. “Each one of us has the opportunity to make a change that actually, eventually does change the world because it changes our neighborhoods, our classrooms, our schools.”
She said that could be done in a number of ways, whether it’s finding someone who’s sitting alone and striking up a conversation with them or choosing to meet a difference of opinion with curiosity instead of anger.
“Unity isn’t believing the same thing, it’s acting together. … When we look at each other and continue to see the humanity in someone else, despite our differences, that’s when we can come together,” she said. “Look for ways to serve and connect with your fellow humans, and see each other, always, as human.”