{"id":450,"date":"2024-06-18T14:09:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T18:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/?p=450"},"modified":"2024-06-18T14:09:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T18:09:20","slug":"surgeon-general-asks-congress-to-require-warning-labels-for-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/surgeon-general-asks-congress-to-require-warning-labels-for-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgeon General Asks Congress to Require Warning Labels for Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week in a New York Times Opinion Piece, Dr. Vivek Murthy said that social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people. He has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms similar to those now\u00a0mandatory on <\/a>cigarette boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Implementing a surgeon general\u2019s warning label, requires congressional action, and would serve to regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe,\u201d Murthy said. \u201cEvidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media use is prevalent among young people, with up to\u00a095% of youth\u00a0ages 13 to 17 saying that they use a social media platform, and more than a third saying that they use social media \u201calmost constantly,\u201d according to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year\u00a0Dr. Murthy\u00a0warned that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that\u00a0social media\u00a0is safe for children and teens. He said at the time that policymakers needed to address the harms of social media the same way they regulate things like car seats, baby formula, medication and other products children use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To comply with federal regulation, social media companies already ban kids under 13 from signing up for their platforms \u2014 but children have been shown to easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents\u2019 consent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other measures social platforms have taken to address concerns about children\u2019s mental health can also be easily circumvented. For instance, TikTok introduced a default\u00a060-minute time limit\u00a0for users under 18. But once the limit is reached, minors can simply enter a passcode to keep watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murthy believes the impact of social media on young people should be a more pressing concern. He wrote, “Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food? These harms are not a failure of willpower and parenting; they are the consequence of unleashing powerful technology without adequate safety measures, transparency or accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to NY TImes Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in a New York Times Opinion Piece, Dr. Vivek Murthy said that social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people. He has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms similar to those now\u00a0mandatory on cigarette boxes. Implementing a surgeon general\u2019s warning label, requires … Continue reading Surgeon General Asks Congress to Require Warning Labels for Social Media<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_eb_attr":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[7,40,25,8],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-news","tag-children-adolescents","tag-overuse","tag-smartphone-app","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tecpsych.com\/techpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}