Taking Action to Protect Our Children
Last Fall, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy spoke at Project Healthy Minds’ World Mental Health Day event and called for greater urgency in addressing young peoples’ use of social media, which is having significant negative ramifications on their mental health. This week, Dr. Murthy went a step further, calling for a formal Surgeon General warning that social media harms adolescents and issuing a clarion call for Congressional action, adults limiting exposure, and other measures. For those of us involved in children’s health and mental health, this is welcome news.
Common Sense Media has been researching teen use of social media, and in 2023 reported that, on Tik Tok alone, 43% of teen girls had unwanted contact with a stranger, 41% said it interfered with their sleep on at least a weekly basis, and 52% felt it pressured them to be the “best versions” of themselves. Depression, negative social interactions, safety issues due to location sharing, social exclusion, and body image concerns are pronounced concerns especially for girls using social media platforms. The California Partners Project has been vocal about California’s obligation, as the birthplace of social media platforms, to hold Silicon Valley accountable for protecting children from the harms of these technologies. Its report on the impact of social media on the empowerment of girls and women, technology tips for digital wellness for caregivers, and series on parenting in the digital age have been invaluable in highlighting how we can collaborate to protect our kids.
Thankfully, there are efforts underway in California to begin to address some of these concerns. The Social Media Platforms Bill, The CA Cyberbullying Protection Act, The Protecting our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, would all – if enacted – go some distance in providing relief to California families should social media companies fail to abide by their obligations. All of this is important, but it only goes so far. Social media knows no state borders.
Families can try, hard as they might, to distract their children from their screens. We know that spending time in community, with family and loved ones, outdoors and in unstructured play is critical to the healthy development of a child’s brain. But at the end of the day, the federal government has a much bigger role to play. Only it can ensure children are shielded from disinformation promulgated by foreign actors, and protected from harassment, abuse, and exploitation. The Surgeon General’s strong conviction that public health is jeopardized by unfettered social media companies’ accessibility to young people, without restrictions and safety measures, should be heeded. The health of our children is at stake.