Congress: Approve the Surgeon General’s Health Warning on Social Media!
Members of Congress
Surgeon General warnings are one of the ways the top health official in the United States lets people know a product could be unsafe. For example, tobacco products are required to have one that tells you about their negative health consequences and alcohol products have to have one that says alcohol can cause harm if consumed during pregnancy.
The current Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, is calling for a new Surgeon General warning on social media platforms that says social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, Dr. Murthy laid out the mounting evidence of harm behind the call for Congress to back the new warning:
“The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor. 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. Additionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.”
Dr. Murthy identified the reason behind these harms, stating that it’s not a failure of willpower or parenting. Instead, they are the “consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.”
Sign the petition to ask Congress to approve the Surgeon General’s request to add a warning label to social media platforms!
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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently called on Congress to approve a Surgeon General warning on social media products that states they may be harmful to adolescent mental health. He laid out compelling research to back up his call to action: adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms and nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.
Parents, grandparents, and guardians know this all too well. We are struggling to keep the children in our lives safe on social media platforms that are designed to keep kids clicking, which makes more money for Big Tech companies, without any regard for their health and safety.
Social media platforms have contributed to the deaths of countless children in the United States. They connect vulnerable kids with predators who sextort them for money or more sexual images until they take their own lives. They facilitate drug sales to minors and, far too often, those pills contain a deadly dose of fentanyl. They serve them dangerous content, like the deadly choking challenge, and endless rabbit holes that promote extreme diet and exercise.
There is evidence that Surgeon General’s warnings work: Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior. When asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children’s social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes.
Dr. Vivek closed his call for a new Surgeon General’s warning on social media by saying, “The moral test of any society is how well it protects its children.”
We agree. Congress must act to protect kids online. Please vote to approve the Surgeon General’s warning on social media platforms.