The Surgeon General's Urgent Warning
The U.S. Surgeon General has issued an urgent advisory addressing the potential dangers of social media on the mental health of young people. Despite the potential benefits, the advisory highlights clear risks that families, schools, and policymakers can no longer ignore. As Dr. Vivek Murthy put it, "The most common question parents ask me is, 'is social media safe for my kids?' The answer is that we don't have enough evidence to say it's safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people's mental health.
How Universal Is Usage?
Nearly 95% of young people aged 13-17 report using social media, with over a third saying they use it "almost constantly." This near-universal adoption means that even small risks scale to affect millions of adolescents across the country. The Surgeon General's Advisory emphasizes that childhood and adolescence represent a critical stage in brain development that can make young people more vulnerable to harms from social media.
Documented Harms and Rising Risks
Growing evidence links social media use to harm to young people's mental health. Key concerns include:
- Harmful content: Children are exposed to violent and sexual content, bullying, and harassment on social media platforms.
- Sleep disruption: Social media use is associated with poor sleep quality, reduced sleep duration, and sleep difficulties among youth.
- Reduced physical activity: Time spent on platforms displaces in-person activities essential for healthy development.
Adolescents spending more than 3 hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes such as symptoms of depression and anxiety. One 2021 survey found that, on average, teenagers spend 3.5 hours a day on social media — well above the threshold where risk escalates.
Body Image, Comparison, and Self-Esteem
Social media may perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison, and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls. When asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse, 40% said it makes them feel neither better nor worse, and only 14% said it makes them feel better. One-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel "addicted" to certain social media platforms, and over half of teenagers report that it would be hard to give up social media.
Exposure to Hate and Prejudice
Additionally, 64% of adolescents are "often" or "sometimes" exposed to hate-based content through social media. The impact varies based on cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors, meaning some groups of children face disproportionate risks while others may experience different types of harm.
Reported Benefits
Despite the documented harms, adolescents also report benefits from social media. Fifty-eight percent feel more accepted, 67% have people who can support them through tough times, 71% have a place to show their creative side, and 80% feel more connected to what's going on in their friends' lives. These positive effects underscore why simply banning platforms is not the answer — the challenge is maximizing benefits while minimizing harms.
Stakeholder Recommendations
The advisory recommends concrete actions from every sector:
Policymakers can strengthen safety standards, limit access in ways that make social media safer for children of all ages, better protect children's privacy, support digital and media literacy, and fund additional research.
Technology companies can better and more transparently assess the impact of their products on children, share data with independent researchers, make design and development decisions that prioritize safety and health — including protecting children's privacy and better adhering to age minimums — and improve systems to provide effective and timely responses to complaints.
Parents and caregivers can make plans in their households such as establishing tech-free zones that foster in-person relationships, teach kids about responsible online behavior and model that behavior, and report problematic content and activity.
Children and adolescents can adopt healthy practices like limiting time on platforms, blocking unwanted content, being careful about sharing personal information, and reaching out if they or a friend need help or see harassment or abuse on the platforms.
Researchers can further prioritize social media and youth mental health research that can support the establishment of standards and evaluation of best practices to support children's health.
Medical Community Responds
Leaders at six of the nation's medical organizations have expressed concern about social media's effects on youth mental health. The American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Public Health Association all issued statements supporting the advisory and calling for safeguards. As Dr. Saul Levin of the American Psychiatric Association remarked, "The first principle of health care is to do no harm — that's the same standard we need to start holding social media platforms to."
Looking Ahead
This advisory is part of a continuing effort by the Surgeon General to address the youth mental health crisis. In December 2021, Dr. Murthy issued an advisory on protecting youth mental health, and more recently an advisory on loneliness and isolation — both of which touch on digital environments. The new advisory on social media and youth mental health is a continuation of this work, laying out a roadmap for policymakers, companies, and experts to come together and ensure social media is set up safety-first, to help young users grow and thrive.
The nation's youth don't have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media's effects. The Surgeon General's Advisory offers stakeholders the information and tools necessary to make social media safer for children now, while research continues to refine our understanding of long-term impacts.
Source: Neuroscience News article summarizing the Surgeon General's Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health (May 23, 2023).
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