6 months ago
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The
US surgeon general
, Vivek Murthy, announced Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents' mental health.
Warning labels - like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products - are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation's top health official, but Dr.
Murthy cannot unilaterally require them; the action requires approval by Congress. No such legislation has yet been introduced in either chamber. A warning label would send a powerful message to parents "that social media has not been proved safe," Dr. Murthy wrote in an essay published in NYT opinion section on Monday.
In his essay, he cast the effects of social media on children and teenagers as a
public health risk
on par with road fatalities or contaminated food. "Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food?" he wrote. "These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability."
Murthy pointed to research that showed that teens who spent more than three hours a day on social media faced a significantly higher risk of mental health problems, and that 46% of adolescents said social media made them feel worse about their bodies.
US teens are spending an average of 4.8 hours per day on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, according to a Gallup survey of over 1,500 adolescents released last fall.
Past warning labels have had significant effects on behaviour. In 1965, after a landmark report from the surgeon general, Congress voted to require all cigarette packages distributed in the US to carry a warning that using the product "may be hazardous to your health." That was the beginning of a 50-year decline in smoking. When the warning labels appeared, around 42% of US adults were daily cigarette smokers; by 2021, that portion had dropped to 11.5%.
