United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he will be pushing for warning labels on social media platforms that advise parents that using the platform can harm the mental health of teenagers.
Warning labels — like those seen on tobacco and alcohol products — are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation’s top health officials, but Dr. Murthy cannot demand it unilaterally; action requires approval by Congress. No such legislation has yet been passed in either chamber.
The warning label would send a strong message to parents “that social media has not been proven safe,” wrote Dr. Murthy in an essay published in the opinion section of The New York Times on Monday.
In his essay, he made the effects of social media on children and teenagers a public health risk similar to road fatalities or contaminated food.
“Why do we fail to respond to the harms of social media when they are less serious or widespread than those caused by unsafe cars, airplanes or food?” Dr. Murthy wrote. “This accident is not a failure of will and parenting; it is the result of releasing a powerful technology without adequate security measures, transparency or accountability.
Dr. Murthy pointed to research that shows that teenagers who spend more than three hours a day on social media face a significantly higher risk of mental health problems, and that 46 percent of teenagers say that social media makes people feel worse about themselves.
US teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, according to a Gallup survey of more than 1,500 teenagers released last fall.
In an interview last month, Dr. Murthy said he has repeatedly heard from young people who “can’t get off the platform,” often finding that hours have passed when they want to just check their feed.
“The platform is designed to maximize the time we spend,” he said. “It’s one thing to do for an adult, and another to do for a child, whose impulse control is still developing, whose brain is at a sensitive stage of development.”
Past warning labels have a significant effect on behavior. In 1965, after an important report from the Surgeon General, Congress voted to require all cigarette packs distributed in the United States to carry a warning that using the product “may be dangerous to your health.”
This was the beginning of a 50-year decline in smoking. When the warning label appeared, about 42 percent of US adults were daily smokers; in 2021, that share drops to 11.5 percent.
There is a fierce debate among researchers about whether social media is behind the mental health crisis in children and adolescents. In a new book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to the 2007 release of the Apple iPhone as an inflection point, leading to an increase in suicidal behavior and reports of despair.
Other experts say that, while the rise of social media has coincided with a decline in well-being, there is no evidence that one causes the other, and instead point to factors such as economic hardship, social isolation, racism, school shootings and the opioid crisis. .
Dr Murthy has long stated that he considers social media a health risk. In May 2023, they issued guidance on the matter, warning that “there are many indications that social media can also have a dangerous risk for the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
In the statement, Dr. Murthy admits that the effects of social media on adolescent mental health are not fully understood. Research suggests these platforms offer both risks and benefits, providing a community for young people who may otherwise feel marginalized.
However, she urged parents to start setting limits on their children’s social media use, and to avoid using the device during mealtimes.
With the call for warning labels, Dr. Murthy continued to dial rapidly.
“One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school is that in an emergency, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfect information,” he wrote. “You assess the available facts, you use your best judgment, and you act quickly.”
Recalling the words of a tearful mother whose son died by suicide after being bullied online, she compares the current moment to important public health campaigns of the past.
“There are no seat belts for parents to click on, no helmets to put on, no assurance that trusted experts have investigated and made sure the platform is safe for kids,” he wrote. “It’s just parents and their kids, trying to figure it out for themselves, against some of the best product engineers and the most resourceful companies in the world.”
