The U.S. surgeon general called on Monday for social media platforms to include health warnings for younger users.
“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents,” Vivek H. Murthy wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times.
Murthy’s office had last year issued an advisory on social media use and its possible affects on teenage users. He called at that time on social media companies to prioritize safety and privacy in their product designs and ensure minimum age requirements are enforced.
Murthy cited research showing that social media was an important contributor to a growing mental-health crisis among young people.
“Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours,” Murthy said.
The surgeon general didn’t name any social-media companies in the article. TikTok, Snapchat, X and Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
