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.
