Do Social Media Apps Need Teen Health Warnings?

If you’ve been paying attention to the news over the last few days, you’ve probably heard about the United States Surgeon General calling for a health warning to be placed on social media apps.

In a column that was published in the New York Times on June 17, 2024, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the highest-ranking health official in the United States, called for social media apps to come with warning labels similar to those placed on cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and other substances that have been deemed harmful. Dr. Murthy points to the potential mental health issues that have been linked to social media as the reason for these warnings.

In his opinion piece, Dr. Murthy explained, “The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency – and social media has emerged as an important contributor.” According to his findings, Dr. Murthy reports that adolescents who spend more than three hours on social media apps each day face double the risk of developing depression and anxiety. This is especially troubling since Dr. Murthy cited a report that indicates that children in this age group spend an average of 4.8 hours each day on social media apps and platforms. Additionally, 50% of children acknowledge that social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.

What Would Health Warnings for Social Media Apps Look Like?

Dr. Vivek Murthy believes that social media app health warnings should look like the same types that appear on products containing tobacco and alcohol. These warning labels clearly map out the risks associated with using those products, and Dr. Murthy believes that social media apps pose a different type of risk, but should come with the same kind of warnings.

It’s important to understand that Dr. Murthy does not have the power to implement these Surgeon General's social media warnings, though. While he is the head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, any warning like the ones Murthy is suggesting would require the approval of Congress.

Dr. Murthy referenced the effectiveness of the warning labels that have appeared on tobacco products for years when underscoring his belief in the need for them on social media apps, claiming that the warning labels on tobacco products have been proven to change behavior by increasing awareness.

Do Social Media Apps Need Teen Health Warnings?

Dr. Murthy insists that social media apps are designed to be addictive, and raises some good points when supporting this claim. He believes that users are drawn into a seemingly infinite stream of new content, while also receiving push notifications that lure them into opening the apps constantly. He also points to the fact that most social media apps have a default setting that plays videos automatically as another way that apps are designed to lure young people in and keep their attention for hours each day.

Murthy was careful not to name specific social media apps in his opinion piece but based on the way he described the way that the apps he was referencing work, most people believe he was referencing apps like TikTok, which has been the source of much debate due to its ties to the Chinese government, X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram, which is owned by the same parent company as Facebook, and Snapchat.

Dr. Murthy also made it clear that he does not believe that the warning labels alone are enough to completely solve the mental health crisis among America’s youth. His piece also focused on the need for the companies that own and operate these apps to be more transparent regarding how they work. He also called for parents to become more involved in their children’s lives by monitoring how long they’re spending on these apps and the type of content that they’re viewing, while also explaining that school officials should be more vigilant about limiting how much access to smartphones students have while they’re at school.

“The moral test of any society is how well it protects its children. We have the expertise, resources, and tools to make social media safe for our kids. Now is the time to summon the will to act. Our children’s well-being is at stake,” Murthy writes.

Is There Support for Social Media App Health Warnings?

While Dr. Vivek Murthy has used his platform as a means to share his views on social media apps and the need for warning labels, he is far from the only person who believes that something needs to be done to quell the amount of damage that adolescents are facing.

Zamaan Qureshi, the co-founder of Design it for Us, a company that pushes for safer social media practices for young people, has been quoted as saying, “I think that young people have had a tremendous amount of stress and burden placed on them to have to figure out and police their own social media usage.” Qureshi, who is 21 years old, went on to say, “The vast majority of young people just don’t know or have the tools to be able to detach.”

Qureshi’s belief about young people not having the tools necessary to police themselves points to something that psychologists and other medical experts have known for years. The human brain does not fully develop until a person reaches their mid-twenties. The frontal lobe, which is an important part of the self-regulation process, is one of the last parts to fully develop. When children have access to something designed to be addictive, it’s logical to assume that they won’t know how to draw the line between social media and “real life,” nor will they fully understand when their mental health necessitates logging off for a while.

In March 2024, Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist who teaches at New York University, published a book titled The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. While his book didn’t place all of the blame for the ongoing mental health crisis among America’s children, he did conclude that the rise in popularity of these platforms has been a major contributor.

When writing about his book in The Atlantic magazine, Haidt explained that a study conducted in 29 countries found that between 5% and 15% of adolescents engage in “problematic social media use.” This problematic use includes withdrawal symptoms when not connected to social media, preoccupation, the neglect of other tasks, and dishonesty regarding how much time is spent on social media.

What Do the Doubters Say?

Of course, there are some who disagree with Dr. Murthy and Haidt. This includes children, such as a 17-year-old from Canada named Josh Boucher who wrote that he believes that kids would simply ignore the warning labels. However, Boucher is not the only voice who doubts the effectiveness of this strategy.

Stetson University professor, Christopher Ferguson has gone on record with his belief that much of this controversy is based on political efforts and ongoing lawsuits that are creating this narrative. Ferguson went on to say that he does not believe that there is enough data to support the claims that Dr. Murthy made in his piece, claiming, “There’s a wide gulf between the narrative and the actual data that can be used to support it.”

What to Expect

It’s unlikely that any warning labels will start appearing on social media apps anytime soon. In 1964, the United States Surgeon General presented a detailed study that showed the correlation between smoking and several diseases, but warning labels were not placed on cigarette packages until 1965.

If you’re a parent of an adolescent, it’s important that you keep an eye on how much time they’re spending on their phone, tablet, or computer, and to know what they’re doing while they’re on there. This isn’t exactly a new discovery, though. We’re unlikely to know the extent of the relationship between social media and mental health for years, as studies continue to be conducted on the topic.