Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says social media use is a main contributor to depression, anxiety and other problems in the nation's teenagers.
Murthy released a report Tuesday calling attention to growing concerns about the effects of social media use on children and adolescent's mental health.
The advisory urges lawmakers and social media platforms to help parents with the burden of managing children's social media use.
"Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment. And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends," Murthy said in a statement. "We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address."
Up to 95% of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 say they use a social media platform, and a third say they're scrolling, posting or otherwise engaged with social media "almost constantly."
Not all affects of social media are negative, the Surgeon General pointed out. Among the benefits, adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what' going on in their friends' lives (80%).
However, social media use can be "excessive and problematic for some children," Murthy added. Research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety. Social media may also perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison, and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls.
"The most common question parents ask me is, 'is social media safe for my kids.' The answer is that we don't have enough evidence to say it's safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people's mental health," Murthy said.
One-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel "addicted" to certain social media platforms and over half of teenagers report that it would be hard to give up social media, according to the Surgeon General. When asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse, 40% said it makes them feel neither better nor worse, and only 14% said it makes them feel better. Additionally, 64% of adolescents are "often" or "sometimes" exposed to hate-based content through social media.
The Surgeon General's Advisory offers recommendations stakeholders can take to help ensure children and their families have the information and tools necessary to make social media safer for children:
• Policymakers can take steps to strengthen safety standards and limit access in ways that make social media safer for children of all ages, better protect children’s privacy, support digital and media literacy, and fund additional research.
• Technology companies can better and more transparently assess the impact of their products on children, share data with independent researchers to increase our collective understanding of the impacts, make design and development decisions that prioritize safety and health – including protecting children’s privacy and better adhering to age minimums – and improve systems to provide effective and timely responses to complaints.
• Parents and caregivers can make plans in their households such as establishing tech-free zones that better foster in-person relationships, teach kids about responsible online behavior and model that behavior, and report problematic content and activity.
• Children and adolescents can adopt healthy practices like limiting time on platforms, blocking unwanted content, being careful about sharing personal information, and reaching out if they or a friend need help or see harassment or abuse on the platforms.
• Researchers can further prioritize social media and youth mental health research that can support the establishment of standards and evaluation of best practices to support children’s health.
"With near universal social media use by America's young people, these apps and sites introduce profound risk and mental health harms in ways we are only now beginning to fully understand. As physicians, we see firsthand the impact of social media, particularly during adolescence – a critical period of brain development," Jack Resneck Jr., President of the American Medical Association, said in a statement. "We continue to believe in the positive benefits of social media, but we also urge safeguards and additional study of the positive and negative biological, psychological, and social effects of social media."
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