The warning – issued only during
extraordinary circumstances – is outlined by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in a
19-page report documents how “extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content” is
easily accessible by children and adolescents, how social media perpetuates
body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison and low
self-esteem, and how roughly two-thirds of adolescents are regularly exposed to
hate-based content.
Murthy’s advisory is quick to note that the
current body of evidence about the impact of social media indicates that it may
have benefits for some children and adolescents – building community and safe
spaces, for example – but that those pale in comparison to the “ample
indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm” to their
mental health and well-being.
“At this time, we do not yet have enough
evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and
adolescents,” he wrote.
Such advisories are reserved for
“significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate
awareness and action,” according to an explanation about how the public should
receive the information. For an increasing number of public schools across the
country whose leaders have been sounding the alarm for years, the warning
bolsters a wave of new litigation seeking to hold those social media companies
accountable.
Seattle Public Schools leaders filed a
complaint in January against the companies operating TikTok, Instagram,
Facebook, SnapChat and YouTube, alleging that school districts like theirs are
“at the front lines of the youth mental health crisis” and that social media
sites are putting children under incredible strain as a result of increased
screen time, unfiltered content and potentially addictive properties of social
media.
Seattle was the first large urban school
district to take on social media giants, but it was far from the last. Over the
last four months, school leaders filed similar lawsuits in Pittsburgh and Bucks
County in Pennsylvania, in San Mateo, California; in Chatham, New Jersey; Bay
County in Florida, which includes Panama City; and in Mesa and Scottsdale in
Arizona.
At least 11 school districts in Kentucky,
including Jefferson County and Fayette, the largest school system in Kentucky,
approved a resolution to file a lawsuit against the companies, alleging that
they "designed their platforms to maximize the time youth spend using them
and addict youth to their platforms” – a strategy that they say has been
"harmful to the mental, behavioral, and emotional health of youth and is
associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating
disorders, and suicide."
Three of Alabama’s largest districts did the
same, alleging “an egregious breach of the public trust.”
It’s unclear exactly how many school
districts have sued the social media giants, but the number counted by U.S.
News is north of two dozen.
The mounting lawsuits come at a precarious
moment for K-12 students and the schools that serve them – in the wake of an
isolating pandemic that shuttered schools in some parts of the country for the
better part of two years and decimated their support staff. An analysis by
Chalkbeat shows that among 18 of the country’s largest school districts, 12
started this school year with fewer counselors or psychologists than they had
in fall 2019 – nearly 1,000 unfilled mental health positions.
The lack of resources has been particularly
distressing for teen girls. New data from the CDC shows that nearly 3 in 5
(57%) of U.S. teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 – double
that of boys, representing a nearly 60% increase and the highest level reported
over the past decade.
And equally problematic for LGBTQ+ children
– and especially transgender children – as Republican-controlled states pass
laws limiting their access to books that center LGBTQ+ issues, strip their
access to gender-affirming care and their ability to play on sports teams, bar
education about sex and gender and block educators from being sources of
support.
Roughly 45% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously
considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 1 in 5 transgender and
nonbinary youth attempted suicide, according to the Trevor Project.
Murthy’s warning this week is hardly his
first on the subject. In fact, he’s been sounding the alarm on the teen mental
health crisis for more than a year now, urging the public not to become “numb
to these numbers.”
