Surgeon general demands warning label on social media apps

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in an op-ed in the New York Times Monday said the threat social media poses to children is an emergency, and he urged Congress to put a label on the apps as with cigarettes and alcohol.

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said the threat social media poses to children requires urgent action, and he demanded Congress to put a label on the apps as it does with cigarettes and alcohol. “The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor,” Murthy said in an op-ed in the New York Times Monday. Murthy cited several studies, including a 2019 American Medical Association study published in JAMA that showed teens who spend three hours a day on social media double their risk of depression. Teens spend nearly five hours a day on social media apps, according to a Gallup poll. But Murthy cannot act unilaterally to put a warning label on apps — that requirement would have to come from Congress, with whom Murthy pleaded to pass a bill. “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,” Murthy said. “A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.” Similar labels on tobacco, first instituted in 1965, led to a steady decline in cigarette smoking in America over the past several decades.