Surgeon general demands warning labels on social media: ‘Our children’s well-being is at stake’

To combat the mental health crisis among young people, the US surgeon general wants all social media platforms to have a tobacco-style warning label notifying users that they are “associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

On Monday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy penned an impassioned op-ed in The New York Times about the dangers of young people using social media too often and for too long at too young of an age.

Murthy pointed to several studies that show a correlation between mental health harms, like anxiety or depression, and time spent on social media. Calling the current mental health crisis an “emergency,” he said it is “time to require a surgeon general’s warning label” on platforms — similar to how tobacco products contain a warning.

“A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe,” Murthy wrote.

He added, “Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior.”

Murthy believes that if the US implemented a surgeon general’s warning on social media platforms, it would incentivize parents to limit or restrict their children’s social media use. This could help reduce the number of young people who experience depression, anxiety or overall bad feelings about themselves.

Recentstudies have shown that adolescents between 12 and 15 years old who used social media for more than three hours a day faced twice the risk of having negative mental health than those who didn’t. Nearly half of young people reported feeling worse about their bodies after using social media, according to another study.

The public has known about the dangers of social