Imagine logging into your Facebook account and seeing a warning label signed by the US surgeon general: Social media has not been proven safe. It can damage the mental health of young people.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is calling for such warning labels on social media, according to a Monday op-ed he wrote for the New York Times.
Showing evidence from tobacco studies and a February Brookings study showing some parents support setting age restrictions on social media platforms, Murthy asserted that warning labels can raise awareness of the dangers of social media and trigger immediate changes in behavior.
“The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as a significant contributor,” Murthy wrote.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy speaks during a June 2023 hearing on the mental health crisis for youth in the United States. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The tag would require congressional action to take effect, and there is currently no bill in Congress that pushes exactly what Murthy is advocating.
However, numerous research studies have shown that social media is linked to mental health risks in teenagers. Brown University Psychology Dr. Jacqueline Nesi has written in the North Carolina Journal of Medicine in 2020 that interactions with peers increase and intensify in a social media space, leading to more negative interactions and social comparisons.
Murthy connected in a 2019 Johns Hopkins study of over 6,000 American youth ages 12 to 15, showing that those who spent more than three hours a day on social media were at greater risk for symptoms of anxiety and depression .
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Murthy also stressed that a warning label would not be enough to make social media safe for children. He pointed out one advisory it issued last year with specific policy recommendations that have already been achieved bipartisan support.
Recommendations in the advisory include tech companies creating age-appropriate safety standards and sharing data on how their platforms affect the health of their users.
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Tech companies have taken steps in the past year to make their platforms safer for children.
In April, YouTube presented a “read-only” comments option that stops kids from commenting on YouTube videos — the biggest change to YouTube's parental controls since the platform created a safer online experience for kids on 2021.
Meta established new content policies for teenagers using Facebook and Instagram in January. Snapchat It `s done the first social media company to support an internet security bill in the same month.