Children ‘unknowing participants’ in social media trial over ‘decades’
Profound danger to young people’s mental health has always been clear, warns the US surgeon general
SOCIAL media companies have risked children becoming “unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment”, America’s top health official has warned.
Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, said there were “ample indicators” that the platforms could profoundly harm young people’s mental health, particularly teenage girls, in an advisory issued yesterday.
Mr Murthy called for safeguards from tech companies for children who were at critical stages of brain development.
The advisory noted that technology companies have a vested interest in keeping users online, and deploy tactics that entice people to engage in addictive behaviours. The advisory stated: “Our children have become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment.” It suggested the platforms’ algorithms should focus on maximising the potential benefits of social media, instead of encouraging users to spend more time on them.
The report includes suggestions for what parents, tech companies, as well as children and adolescents, can do to avoid dangerous pitfalls, such as a “family media plan” to set boundaries and time limits on social media use.
In issuing the advisory, Mr Murthy said the country was in the midst of “a national youth mental health crisis”, and expressed concern over social media’s role in driving the crisis. The surgeon general’s advisory noted data suggests social media use may cause and perpetuate body image issues, affect eating behaviours and sleep quality, and lead to social comparison and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls.
“In early adolescence, when identities and sense of self-worth are forming, brain development is especially susceptible to social pressures, peer opinions and peer comparison,” the advisory noted.
Adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, according to the advisory.
However, it also noted that most young people say social media helps them feel more accepted, more supported during tough timesand more creative. It said policymakers should strengthen safety standards, while noting that inappropriate and harmful content continues to be easily and widely accessible to children.
‘When people’s identities are forming, development of the brain is susceptible to social pressures’