Surgeon general warning on social media a good first step but more action is needed

Perhaps you’ve seen it – maybe on the news, maybe on Facebook – but there is an effort among more than 80% of the states’ attorneys general and the U.S. surgeon general to slap a warning on social media platforms. The warning would, according to elected leaders, highlight the inherent risks that social media platforms presently pose for young people and complement other efforts to spur attention, research and investment into the oversight of social media platforms.

Yep, Facebook and other platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and Tik Tok might soon get the tobacco treatment. And you know what? Strange as it might sound to some, it’s the right thing to do.

There is a growing collection of data that ties social media to many of the issues that plague this current generation of children. Studies show that kids who got hooked into hours of daily smartphone use, starting in 2010, showed sharp increases in anxiety and depression as well as social isolation and loneliness – an ironic twist when you consider we are more connected globally than ever before.

Lots of experts in psychology and the medical field have advocated for less screen time for all ages. It takes little more than a trip to a local restaurant to see how many of us are sucked into screens instead of the people and world around us. From social damages like limited or nonexistent personal interaction to medical harms like a lack of exercise and sunlight, the reasons are plentiful for young and old alike.

But children are getting hit the hardest for a variety of reasons. In some ways, it is taking the societal ills that previous generations railed against – excessive TV and video game time and airbrushed, impossibly perfect magazine models – and given them a huge steroid injection. Now, those same videos and video games are infinitely more plentiful, and thanks to AI (artificial intelligence), highly sophisticated photo editors and more, the photos put in front of children not only set an even more impossible beauty standard, but they are essentially endless. Adding to the addictive qualities, brilliant programmers have fine-tuned algorithms that detect viewing and scrolling habits and put more of the same content on kids’ social media feeds.

Mounting studies have determined that no human brain was meant to absorb the immense amount of information that is now literally at our fingertips. Anxiety and depression among adults have been tied back to absorbing a substantially higher amount of negative news stories and propaganda coming from each side of the political spectrum. The same is true for kids but they are far less equipped to deal with it.

And when it comes to bullying, the days of whispering rumors from one person to the next have been replaced with what amounts to a potentially nationwide broadcast of harmful rumors that can come from anywhere. The damage is much greater, more widespread and there is a permanence to it once it enters cyberspace. What has resulted is increases not only in anxiety and depression but youth suicide as well.

Lastly, the impact on the social lives of kids is the very definition of irony. Platforms that were expected to connect people better than ever before have instead driven people into their homes, their bedrooms, trading in-person social gatherings with friends and peers for virtual relationships. One need only look at how the COVID restrictions and social distancing affected youth to realize this is not a good trend for children.

For many reasons, putting a surgeon general warning on social media platforms is not only a good idea, it should be the first of many changes that governments, communities and parents make to safeguard kids from the harm these sites are inflicting.

Age restrictions come with many potentially harmful items or activities. Certain magazines can only be purchased by people who can prove they are 18 years or older. Tobacco purchases were limited to people over 18 and more recently over 21. Movies come with restrictions that prevent kids under 17 from watching certain films.

All of these restrictions require a valid photo ID, yet the only “proof” of age needed for unlimited social media use is the right answer to a yes or no question: Are you 13 years or older? This must change.

Social media needs a higher age limit, one that more reasonably corresponds with what kids can handle at different phases of their psychological and physical development. Furthermore, and most importantly, those restrictions must be enforceable.

In addition to raising the minimum age, government and school leaders should work together to limit smartphone and social media use in schools and educate students on the ways overuse of the platforms can harm young people.

One encouraging change is the local high schools have now joined the younger schools in requiring students to keep their smartphones turned off and locked up during class time. They can use them at lunch break and during passing periods but that is it. This is good to see, because it is well documented that teens struggle to pull attention away from their screens, from the social media platforms they enjoy so much.

To take the surgeon general warning and school intervention a step further, educators should consider adopting a DARE model, but instead of focusing on drug abuse prevention, it would focus on the harms of social media. Up to this point, these types of programs don’t appear to exist, but many times when adults sense a pervasive problem that is harming our youth, educational programs that address it aren’t far behind.

Like most widespread problems, there aren’t easy answers, but the surgeon general warning is a good start and government officials should embrace it. From there, lawmakers, educators, parents and even neighbors need to work together and keep kids safe.