"Social media poses ‘profound risk’ to kids’ mental health, surgeon general warns", 23 May 2023

Social-media platforms pose “a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children,” and there is not enough evidence “to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents,” according to an advisory note from the U.S. surgeon general.

...25-page advisory comes as the possible effects of social media on the mental health of children and teens has in recent years come into increasingly sharp focus. The surgeon general cites one study finding that kids aged 12 to 15 who spent more than three hours a day on social media faced twice the risk of a negative mental-health outcome, particularly depression and anxiety, compared with people in the same age range who didn’t use social media at all.

And there has been some evidence linking social-media usage to poor mental-health outcomes in young girls, in particular, compared with boys.

Heavy social-media use has been linked to some mental-health problems among all people, as large amounts of time spent on these platforms may, again, disrupt sleep, expose people to cyberbullying, create unrealistic views of other people’s lives and increase loneliness, numerous studies have determined.

But since younger Americans tend to use social media more than older Americans — and they often don’t have the maturity to deal with everything to which they are exposed on social media — they may be at greater risk for physical and emotional health problems.

“As a messaging service for real friends, we applaud the surgeon general’s principled approach to protecting teens from the ills of traditional social-media platforms. Snapchat doesn’t encourage perfection, popularity or stranger contact, and we don’t broadly distribute unmoderated public content, which helps prevent the promotion and discovery of potentially harmful material,” a Snap spokesperson told MarketWatch.

Representatives for Google, Meta and TikTok did not immediately respond to MarketWatch’s requests for comment for this story.

There also might be benefits to using social media, according to the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which began compiling data in 2015. Its research shows, for example, that social-media platforms have been used as stress relievers for some children.

The surgeon general’s advisory also states that social media can help promote self-expression in children, aid in maintaining friendships and create positive interactions with a more diverse peer group. It adds that more analysis of social-media habits among children is needed.

President Joe Biden at times has been critical of social-media platforms. “We must finally hold social-media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” the president said during his State of the Union speech in February.

In a Tuesday statement, the White House signaled a belief that America’s youth are suffering through a mental-health crisis, calling the situation “unprecedented.”