U.S. Surgeon General on mandating warning labels on social media
WASHINGTON (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - The U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says Congress needs to mandate mandatory warning labels on social media platforms, similar to those on cigarette boxes, as he says social media is associated with significant mental health harms for kids.
Dr. Murthy spoke with Today's Savannah Guthrie Monday morning an an exclusive interview.
"Parents are struggling all over the country. I've spent time with 1000s of parents over the last few years all over America, and the number one question they often ask me about is social media. They want to know, 'Is this safe for my kids?' 'How should I manage it?' And what the data is telling us...is not only have companies not demonstrated that their platforms are safe for kids, but there's growing evidence of harm. It shows us, in fact, that when adolescents spend more than three hours a day on social media, we're seeing an association with a doubling of risk of anxiety and depression symptoms and the use per day among adolescents is nearly five hours. So that's deeply concerning to me, not just a Surgeon General, but as a parent myself. Now, a warning label would help parents to understand these risks. Many parents don't know that those risks exist, and we have data from tobacco warning labels that, in fact, tells us that they can be helpful in changing awareness and changing behavior. Keep in mind, when Congress authorized these labels for tobacco, more than half a century or nearly half a century ago, smoking rate in America was above 40% today it's under 12% that's an extraordinary amount of progress. Labels were a part of that effort."
Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General
During the interview, Guthrie and Murthy talked about some social media platforms taking steps to ensure kids' mental health, but when Guthrie asked is they could do much more, Murthy said:
"They could do much more...and what has happened over the last nearly two decades that social media has been around is truly unconscionable. When it comes to the health of our kids. We have allowed these platforms to exist, to evolve, to proliferate, to really occupy so much space in our children's lives. And our kids themselves are telling us about the mental health impact. You know, I just finished a college tour where I spent time with young people all around our country, and they brought up social media and every engagement we had talking about how it makes it feel worse about their body image, how it makes them feel worse about their lives as they're constantly comparing themselves to others. But here's the thing...many of them say that they can't get off it because the platforms are often designed to maximize how much time our kids are spending on them, and he despite the fact that many of them are experiencing harm, that has to change. It's why last year, I called on Congress to put in place safety standards, like we did for cars and other products, to make social media safer. It is not okay for us to put the entire burden of managing this on parents."
When asked what the right age is to give someone a phone, and what the right age is to join social media, Murthy said:
"Here's how we're approaching it. For our kids, my kids are young, and we're starting to have these discussions, actually, among parents in our school as well, but I would delay the use of social media for kids until at least after middle school. I would also, if your children are on social media, I would create tech free zones in their day to protect sleep, in person, interaction and physical activity. That could look like not allowing technology at the dinner table when you're eating together, it could look like taking technology away one hour before bedtime and then giving it back to kids in the morning, but we need to do this. It's not easy. And I tell me, trust me, I know this, because many parents can come up to me and say, Look, my child is saying to me that they're the only one not on social media, and they don't want to be left out and they want an account. Well, this is why, as parents, we need to start talking about this more openly, partnering with each other and helping one another is when we make pacts to actually enforce these kind of rules together. It's easier, and right now, too many parents are struggling alone, feeling ashamed, feeling like they're failing as parents, and not realizing that all of us are struggling with the same questions."
