In opinion article in The New York Times Dr Vivek Murthy has advocated for a warning label associating time spent on social media with significant mental ehalth harms
US surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy has stirred a hornet’s nest with his opinion piece to The New York Times where he has advocated that social media sites should come with a health warning that currently products containing tobacco do.
Dr Murthy has for long been a votary of restrictions on screen time for children. In a series of posts on the social media handle ‘X”, Dr Murthy while sharing his piece in NYT wrote: “In May 2023, I outlined recommendations to make social media safer for kids. Yet parents and children are still waiting for change. In my @nytimes op-ed, I issue a renewed call for legislators to take action and also call for a Surgeon General’s warning label on social media. Social media has become an important contributor to our #YouthMentalHealth crisis. We are in the middle of an emergency, and it’s essential that Congress act with speed and urgency. The health and well-being of our kids is at stake.”
Screen time in children has long been associated with reduced attention span, inadequate sleep, poor social skills, obesity and sometimes learning deficits. “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. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe. Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior,” Dr Murthy wrote in NYT.
In May 2023 the surgeon general’s office had issued an advisory on social media and youth mental health. That document said that excessive and problematic social media use, such as compulsive or uncontrollable use, has been linked to sleep problems, attention problems, and feelings of exclusion among adolescents
