Matt Richtel, Catherine Pearson and Michael Levenson
The United States' top health official issued an extraordinary public warning last month about the risks of social media to young people, urging a push to fully understand the possible “harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
In a 19-page advisory, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, noted that the effects of social media on adolescent mental health were not fully understood, and that social media can be beneficial to some users. Nonetheless, he wrote, “There are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
The report included practical recommendations to help families guide children’s social media use. It recommended that families keep mealtimes and in-person gatherings free of devices to help build social bonds and promote conversation. It suggested creating a “family media plan” to set expectations for social media use, including boundaries around content and keeping personal information private.
Dr. Murthy also called on tech companies to enforce minimum age limits and to create default settings for children with high safety and privacy standards. And he urged the government to create age-appropriate health and safety standards for technology platforms.
Survey results from Pew Research have found that up to 95 percent of teens reported using at least one social media platform, while more than one-third said they used social media “almost constantly.” As social media use has risen, so have self-reports and clinical diagnoses among adolescents of anxiety and depression, along with emergency room visits for self-harm and suicidal ideation.
At their clearest, the data indicate that social media can have both a positive and negative impact on the well-being of young people, and that heavy use of social media — and screen time generally — appears to displace activities like sleep and exercise that are considered vital to developing brains.
The surgeon general’s advisory noted, social media platforms brim with “extreme, inappropriate and harmful content,” including content that “can normalize” self-harm, eating disorders and other self-destructive behavior. Cyberbullying is rampant.
Moreover, social media spaces can be fraught for young people especially, the advisory added: “In early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are forming, brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions and peer comparison.”
The advisory did not provide guidance on what a healthy use of social media might look like, nor did it condemn social-media use for all young people. Rather, it concluded, “We do not yet have enough evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.”
*The New York Times
