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Social Media Should Have Labels Similar To Tobacco Products, Surgeon General Says—Noting ‘Significant Harm’ For Teens

Jun 18, 2024

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TOPLINE

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called Monday for Congress to pass legislation mandating social media platforms feature a warning about the harm they pose to teens’ mental health after the nation’s highest health official raised the alarm last year about the impact of social media on young people.

Key Facts

* In an op-ed for The New York Times, Murthy said a Surgeon General’s warning label should be required on social media platforms, “stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

* The label would be similar to those required for tobacco products, which warn of the health impacts associated with smoking and using products with nicotine.

* Murthy noted that putting warning labels would not “make social media safe for young people,” but pointed to studies noting that the similar warning labels for tobacco products show they “can increase awareness and change behavior,” as well as polls suggesting parents could be persuaded by a warning label to monitor or limit their child’s social media use.

* The Surgeon General previously issued an advisory in 2023 warning about the impacts of social media use on youth mental health, which noted “the current body of evidence indicates that while social media may have benefits for some children and adolescents, 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.”

* Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube have not yet responded to requests for comment.

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“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?” Murthy wrote in his op-ed Monday. “These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.”

BIG NUMBER

96%. That’s the share of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who say they use the internet at least daily, according to a Pew Research survey conducted in September and October 2023, including 46% who say they’re online “almost constantly” and 47% who say they use the internet “several times a day.” That’s significantly up from the 24% of teens who reported being online “almost constantly” in 2014 and 2015.

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